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According to the following extract taken from Wikipedia, almost all prime numbers are isolated given Brun's theorem. Doesn't that mean that there is only a finite number of twin prime numbers (they form a set of density 0 across the natural numbers)? As this hasn't been proven yet, I can only assume the extract is wrong. Or have I misunderstood something?

I normally understand almost never as meaning finite but this has led me to thinking about the following: $\lim_{x \to \infty}{\frac{x}{x^2}}=0$ and according to the extended continuum hypothesis $(\aleph_0)^2=\aleph_0$ (Schröder–Bernstein theorem). So $x$ can be taken to be the cardinality of a set of density 0 and still be infinite. Unless we consider $x=x^2$ at the limit in which case the output gives 1. I believe there is a mistake in my understanding somewhere but I can't quite point it out.

Isolated prime

An isolated prime (also known as single prime or non-twin prime) is a prime number p such that neither p − 2 nor p + 2 is prime. In other words, p is not part of a twin prime pair. For example, 23 is an isolated prime, since 21 and 25 are both composite.

The first few isolated primes are

2, 23, 37, 47, 53, 67, 79, 83, 89, 97, ... OEIS: A007510.

It follows from Brun's theorem that almost all primes are isolated in the sense that the ratio of the number of isolated primes less than a given threshold n and the number of all primes less than n tends to 1 as n tends to infinity.

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    $\begingroup$ "almost all" has a different menaning here , in a similar sense as "almost all numbers are composite" , where there are still infinite many exceptions. $\endgroup$
    – Peter
    Commented Jul 6 at 11:47
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    $\begingroup$ So this theorem does not imply that there are only finite many twin primes. It is still strongly conjectured that there are infinite many. $\endgroup$
    – Peter
    Commented Jul 6 at 11:49
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter thx. I would be very glad if you could post an answer with the definition of this "almost all". $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Jul 6 at 11:50
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    $\begingroup$ @David "almost all" means "all except countably many". In the context of a countable set, this does not mean much, as every infinite subset of a countable set is countable. $\endgroup$
    – paulina
    Commented Jul 6 at 12:19

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The quoted Wikipedia passage gives the exact sense of "almost all" which is intended. To rephrase: for any $n$, we can look at the number of primes less than $n$ (call it $p_n$) and the number of isolated primes less than $n$ (call it $q_n$). Then the statement is that $\lim_{n \to \infty} q_n/p_n = 1$.

As you suggest, this essentially says that the twin primes have density zero in the primes. But this is a much weaker statement than saying that there are only finitely many twin primes. As an example, the density of square numbers in the positive integers is zero: the ratio of square numbers to all numbers up to $n$ is about $\sqrt{n}/n = 1 / \sqrt{n}$, which tends to zero as $n$ tends to infinity. But that doesn't mean there are only finitely many square numbers.

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    $\begingroup$ This combined with @paulina 's comment answers my question. Almost all for the real numbers can only exclude countable sets and for the natural numbers a set with density 0. $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Jul 6 at 12:46

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