The Prime Sieve as a Stack of Orthogonal Periodic Fields

Each prime p emits a period-p exclusion field Mp. The sieve is their pointwise product on ℤ/Lk; the new information of pk is the orthogonal kill-set Ck.

Orthogonal components, prime by prime

Click a row to select a prime. already dead (smaller prime), killed first by this prime (that is Ck), still alive at stage k.

Sieve stack — position space (“particle” picture)

One row per prime: faint = its full periodic field Mp, bright = its orthogonal contribution Ck. Bottom row = survivors of the stack.

Observation validation — orthogonal sequences

For each prime pk, the orthogonal new-kill set is observed as Ck = pk × {1, q prime : pk ≤ q < Lk−1}. Rows compare the computed Ck prefix against that formula. The full period is expanded only when it is small enough to display; otherwise the first terms are validated.

Prime spectrum — frequency space (“wave” picture)

Every prime owns the comb of frequencies m/p, m = 1 … p−1 in ℚ/ℤ, each with amplitude exactly 1/p. Distinct primes have disjoint nonzero support; the DC term (white, at frequency 0) is shared by all masks and equals ρk for the product.

Interference field — waves collapsing into composites

[p | n] = (1/p) Σm cos(2πmn/p) is literally a sum of cosines. Summing the truncated expansions over the basis gives UH(n); as H grows the ripples sharpen into spikes at composites and the survivors emerge as exact zeros. Prime gaps = constructive interference.

Flows: multiplicative density, additive entropy

ρk = ∏(1−1/pi) (Mertens, log axis) vs. Hjoint(k) = Σ H(pi) and the per-prime increment ΔH = H(pk) ~ log pk/pk.

CRT product structure

Two coordinates of ℤ/Lkℤ ≅ ∏ ℤ/piℤ.

Survivor gaps

Gap histogram of the wheel survivors in the window.

Reading the numbers

Caveat kept from the paper: all masks share the DC frequency, so only the nonzero supports are disjoint. The frequencies here are rational points of ℚ/ℤ — categorically unlike zeta zeros. Serve this directory over HTTP (ES modules won't load from file://).