Project Euler Question 3 Help

Question

I\'m trying to work through Project Euler and I\'m hitting a barrier on problem 03. I have an algorithm that works for smaller numbers, but problem 3 uses a very, very large

Answer 1

Maybe it is considered cheating, but one possibility in haskell is to write (for the record I wrote the lines myself and haven't checked eulerproject threads);

import Data.Numbers.Primes
last (primeFactors 600851475143)

Answer 2

All Project Euler's problems should take less then a minute; even an unoptimized recursive implementation in Python takes less then a second [0.09 secs (cpu 4.3GHz)].

from math import sqrt

def largest_primefactor(number):
    for divisor in range(2, int(sqrt(number) + 1.5)): # divisor <= sqrt(n)
        q, r = divmod(number, divisor)
        if r == 0:
            #assert(isprime(divisor))
            # recursion depth == number of prime factors,
            # e.g. 4 has two prime factors: {2,2}
            return largest_primefactor(q) 

    return number # number is a prime itself

Answer 3

This solution on C++ took 3.7 ms on my Intel Quad Core i5 iMac (3.1 GHz)

#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <ctime>

using std::sqrt; using std::cin;
using std::cout; using std::endl;

long lpf(long n)
{
  long start = (sqrt(n) + 2 % 2);
  if(start % 2 == 0) start++;

  for(long i = start; i != 2; i -= 2)
    {
      if(n % i == 0) //then i is a factor of n                                                
        {
          long j = 2L;
          do {
              ++j;
             }
          while(i % j != 0 && j <= i);

          if(j == i) //then i is a prime number                                           
            return i;
        }
    }
}

int main()
{
  long n, ans;
  cout << "Please enter your number: ";
  cin >> n; //600851475143L                                                               

  time_t start, end;
  time(&start);
  int i;
  for(i = 0; i != 3000; ++i)
      ans = lpf(n);
  time(&end);

  cout << "The largest prime factor of your number is: " << ans << endl;
  cout << "Running time: " << 1000*difftime(end, start)/i << " ms." << endl;

  return 0;
}

Answer 4

For starters, instead of beginning your search at n / 2, start it at the square root of n. You'll get half of the factors, the other half being their complement.

eg:

n = 27
start at floor(sqrt(27)) = 5
is 5 a factor? no
is 4 a factor? no
is 3 a factor? yes. 27 / 3 = 9. 9 is also a factor.
is 2 a factor? no.
factors are 3 and 9.

Answer 5

Actually, for this case you don't need to check for primality, just remove the factors you find. Start with n == 2 and scan upwards. When evil-big-number % n == 0, divide evil-big-number by n and continue with smaller-evil-number. Stop when n >= sqrt(big-evil-number).

Should not take more than a few seconds on any modern machine.

Answer 6

Using a recursive algorithm in Java runs less than a second ... think your algorithm through a bit as it includes some "brute-forcing" that can be eliminated. Also look at how your solution space can be reduced by intermediate calculations.