No label defined (Q4489765)

\textit{W. Sierpiński} [Elem. Math. 15, 73-74 (1960; Zbl 0093.04602)] found that, for each \(k\leq 100\), except perhaps 47 and 94, there is an \(n\) such that \(k\cdot 2^n+1\) is prime, and more recently \textit{W. Bosma} [Math. Comput. 61, 97-109 (1993; Zbl 0817.11060)] also studied the case \(k\cdot 2^n-1\). Interest in such numbers arises from primality criteria associated with Fermat and Mersenne numbers due to Pepin, Lucas and Lehmer. From computations the author finds that \(k=509203\) is likely to be the smallest number for which \(k\cdot 2^n-1\) is composite for all \(n\geq 1\), with \(\{3,5,7,13,17,241\}\) being the covering set of divisors. Four other values of \(k\leq 10^6\) with such a property are \(762701,777149,790841,992077\).