Applying the Explicit Formula

It’s quite some time since we arrived at Riemann’s main result, the explicit formula \[ J(x)=\mathrm{Li}(x)-\sum_{\Im\varrho>0}\left(\mathrm{Li}(x^\varrho)+\mathrm{Li}(x^{1-\varrho})\right)+\int_x^\infty\frac{\mathrm{d}t}{t(t^2-1)\log t}-\log2, \] where \(J(x)\) is the prime power counting function introduced even earlier. It’s high time we applied this! First, let’s take a look at \(J(x)\) when calculating it exactly: You see how this jumps by one unit at prime values (\(2\), \(3\), \(5\), \(7\), \(11\), \(13\), \(17\), \(19\)), by half a unit at squares of primes (\(4\), \(9\)), by a third at cubes (\(8\)), and by a quarter at fourth powers (\(16\)), but is constant otherwise. [Read More]