No fancy-pants recursion or math short-cuts here, just a straight forward logic problem. The only "trick" here is to realize that since a <e; b < c, we only need to check values of a and b up to 499.

I'm sure you could whittle that number down by crunching the numbers, but it's good enough for me!

Problem 39

For which value of p 1000, is the number of solutions maximised?

counts = {}
counts.default = 0

(1..499).each do |a|
  (a..499).each do |b|
    break if a + b > 500
    c = Math.sqrt(a**2 + b**2)
    next unless c.denominator == 1
    counts[a + b + c] += 1
  end
end

sorted = counts.sort { |a, b| a[1] <=> b[1] }

puts sorted.last[0]

                          

The real trick here is to cut down on the numbers you check. Since the problem gives you 918273645 as an example we know the answer must be greater than or equal to it...meaning we only need to check digits that start with 9!

I don't actually do it because I couldn't figure out an elegant way to do, but it runs in just a few milliseconds so it's fast enough in my book.

Another important factor to note is that you only need to check numbers up to 9_876 since this is the first 'half' of the largest pandigital possible.

Those two tricks will cut down the calculations you need to run to just a few thousand.

Problem 38

What is the largest 1 to 9 pandigital 9-digit number that can be formed as the concatenated product of an integer with (1,2, ... , n) where n 1?

def get_pandigital? n
  nums = []
  (1..9).each do |digit|
    nums += (n * digit).to_s.split ''
    return 0 if nums.size != nums.uniq.size || nums.include?('0')
    return nums.join('').to_i if nums.size == 9
  end
end

solution = 0

(9..9_876).each do |n|
  # could do better by only looking at 9's!
  result = get_pandigital? n
  if result > solution
    solution = result
  end
end

puts solution

Check out all of my solutions on bitbucket!

                          

BAM!

Problem 37

The number 3797 has an interesting property. Being prime itself, it is possible to continuously remove digits from left to right, and remain prime at each stage: 3797, 797, 97, and 7. Similarly we can work from right to left: 3797, 379, 37, and 3.

Find the sum of the only eleven primes that are both truncatable from left to right and right to left.

load 'prime_generator.rb'

def prime? n, truncate
  return false if !$primer.is_prime?(n)
  return true if n < 10
  prime? truncate.call(n), truncate
end

left = Proc.new { |n| n / 10 }
right = Proc.new { |n| n % 10**Math.log10(n).to_i }

$primer = Prime_Generator.new 3_797
n, sum, found = 0, 0, 0

while found < 11 do
  if (n += 1) > 10 && prime?(n, left) && prime?(n, right)
    found += 1
    sum += n
  end
end

puts sum

Also, I've finally moved my project euler solutions over to bitbucket. Long live Mercurial!

                          

Well...

I've been nooking CLR via C# and it's a fantastic read for anyone who wants to 'get serious' about .Net. The book's so crammed full of good information it's hard not to gush, but I digress.

I was nooking, you see, and I came across this recommendation:

"Use signed data types (such as Int32 and Int64 instead of unsigned numeric types such as UInt32 and UInt64) wherever possible."

Jeffrey Richter continues:

"This allows the compiler to detect more overflow/underflow errors. In addition, various parts of the class library (such as Array's and String's Length properties) are hard-coded to return signed values, and less casting is required as you move these values around in your code."

Casting is ugly, no argument there but I don't care much about the overflow/underflow errors. I generally don't enable overflow checking, there's no political statement here, it's just never come up.

And it still feels wrong for me to declare a value signed when I know that it shouldn't be.

(Richter recommends enabling checking for debug builds, and disabling for release. Sound advice!)

But here's real the kicker for me:

In addition, unsigned numeric types are not CLS-compliant.

Doh. I did a bit of searching to try and track down why it's not part of the CLS, and I found that Brad Abrams expresses it best in this post:

"The general feeling among many of us is that the vast majority of programming is done with signed types. Whenever you switch to unsigned types you force a mental model switch (and an ugly cast). In the worst cast you build up a whole parallel world of APIs that take unsigned types. The value of avoiding the '< 0' check is not worth the inclusion of generics in the CLS"

Alright, I give in. I'm apparently in the minority, these guys are way smarter than I am, and it is easier, if not more concise. So it goes.

Goodbye for now uint, you'll always hold a positive place in my heart.

Just like Weezer:

                          

Problem 35

How many circular primes are there below one million?

require 'prime_generator'

primer = Prime_Generator.new 1_000_000

def is_rot_prime? primer, chars
	chars.size.times do |i|
		chars = Array.new(chars.size) { |i| chars[i - 1] }
		return false if !primer.is_prime?(chars.join("").to_i)
	end
	true
end

count = 0
primer.stack.each do |n|
	count += 1 if is_rot_prime? primer, n.to_s.split("")
end

# subtract 1 because "1" doesn't count
puts count - 1

Speaking of the rotation, the ruby array initialize methods and negative indexers make it a cinch to rotate. How cool is this?

chars = Array.new(chars.size) { |i| chars[i - 1] }

                          

The first hurdle was figuring out the upper bound. After scratching around in my notebook, I figured any number I would be looking for would have 7 digits or less. That gives us an upper bound of 9! * 7.

The second hurde took me much, much longer to figure out.

Here's the secret: 0! = 1

I had taken it for granted that 0! would (of course!) be 0, and I had pre-filled my cache with the number 0. I went round, and round, and round, and round, and round, and round before figuring out (quite accidentally) my error.

It doesn't make any sense to me, but you can't argue with math!

Problem 34

Find the sum of all numbers which are equal to the sum of the factorial of their digits.

# cache the digit factorials
factorials = [1]
(1..9).each do |i|
	factorials.push(i * factorials.last)
end

result = 0
(3..2_540_160).each do |n|
	sum = n.to_s.split("").inject(0) do |sum,n|
		sum + factorials[n.to_i]
	end
	result += n if n == sum
end
puts result

Runs in just under a minute

                          

Problem 36

Find the sum of all numbers, less than one million, which are palindromic in base 10 and base 2.

def palindrome? s
	s == s.reverse
end

sum = (1..1_000_000).inject(0) do |sum, n|
	sum += palindrome?(n.to_s) && palindrome?(n.to_s 2) ? n : 0
end

puts sum

                          

For reals.

Problem 33

Discover all the fractions with an unorthodox cancelling method.

top, bottom = 1, 1

(10..98).each do |i|
	((i/10)..9).each do |jt|
		jt *= 10
		(1..9).each do |jo|
			j = jt + jo
			next if i >= j
			if i % 10 == j / 10 && i.to_f / j == (i / 10).to_f / (j % 10)
				top *= i
				bottom *= j
			end
		end
	end
end

puts bottom / bottom.gcd(top)

                          

Find the Longest Palindrome in a string:

I doubt this is an optimal solution, but I like how it works:

text = "FourscoreandsevenyearsagoourfaathersbroughtforthonthiscontainentanewnationconceivedinzLibertyanddedicatedtothepropositionthatallmenarecreatedequalNowweareengagedinagreahtcivilwartestingwhetherthatnaptionoranynartionsoconceivedandsodedicatedcanlongendureWeareqmetonagreatbattlefiemldoftzhatwarWehavecometodedicpateaportionofthatfieldasafinalrestingplaceforthosewhoheregavetheirlivesthatthatnationmightliveItisaltogetherfangandproperthatweshoulddothisButinalargersensewecannotdedicatewecannotconsecratewecannothallowthisgroundThebravelmenlivinganddeadwhostruggledherehaveconsecrateditfaraboveourpoorponwertoaddordetractTgheworldadswfilllittlenotlenorlongrememberwhatwesayherebutitcanneverforgetwhattheydidhereItisforusthelivingrathertobededicatedheretotheulnfinishedworkwhichtheywhofoughtherehavethusfarsonoblyadvancedItisratherforustobeherededicatedtothegreattdafskremainingbeforeusthatfromthesehonoreddeadwetakeincreaseddevotiontothatcauseforwhichtheygavethelastpfullmeasureofdevotionthatweherehighlyresolvethatthesedeadshallnothavediedinvainthatthisnationunsderGodshallhaveanewbirthoffreedomandthatgovernmentofthepeoplebythepeopleforthepeopleshallnotperishfromtheearth"

def find_longest_palindrome s1, size
	longest = ""

	s1.size.times do |start|
		break if start + size > s1.size
		s2 = s1[start, size].reverse
		if s1.include? s2
			return s2
		end
	end

	find_longest_palindrome s1, size - 1
end

puts find_longest_palindrome(text, text.length)

I found the site via this post, 10 puzzle websites to sharpen your programming skills. Now that the wedding's over (pics soon!) I can't wait to get back to a regular extracurricular programming schedule!

                          

I just completed The Greplin Programming Challenge! The problems were similar to some of the Project Euler problems I've done, but it was still a lot of fun. I can't wait for the next one!

The End