Smallest number that is evenly divisible by all of the numbers from 1 to 20?

Question

I did this problem [Project Euler problem 5], but very bad manner of programming, see the code in c++,

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
// to find lowest divisble number till 20

int main()
{
int num = 20, flag = 0;

while(flag == 0)
{
    if ((num%2) == 0 && (num%3) == 0 && (num%4) == 0    && (num%5) == 0 && (num%6) == 0 
    && (num%7) == 0 && (num%8) == 0 && (num%9) == 0 && (num%10) == 0 && (num%11) == 0 && (num%12) ==0   
    && (num%13) == 0 && (num%14) == 0 && (num%15) == 0 && (num%16) == 0 && (num%17) == 0 && (num%18)==0
    && (num%19) == 0    && (num%20) == 0)       

    {
        flag =  1;
        cout<< " lowest divisible number upto 20 is  "<< num<<endl;
    }

    num++;
}

}

i was solving this in c++ and stuck in a loop, how would one solve this step......

• consider num = 20 and divide it by numbers from 1 to 20
• check whether all remainders are zero,
• if yes, quit and show output num
• or else num++

i din't know how to use control structures, so did this step

if ((num%2) == 0 && (num%3) == 0 && (num%4) == 0    && (num%5) == 0 && (num%6) == 0 
&& (num%7) == 0 && (num%8) == 0 && (num%9) == 0 && (num%10) == 0 && (num%11) == 0 && (num%12) ==0   
&& (num%13) == 0 && (num%14) == 0 && (num%15) == 0 && (num%16) == 0 && (num%17) == 0 && (num%18)==0
&& (num%19) == 0    && (num%20) == 0) `

how to code this in proper manner?

answer for this problem is:

abhilash@abhilash:~$ ./a.out 
 lowest divisible number upto 20 is  232792560

Answer 1

The smallest number that is divisible by two numbers is the LCM of those two numbers. Actually, the smallest number divisible by a set of N numbers x1..xN is the LCM of those numbers. It is easy to compute the LCM of two numbers (see the wikipedia article), and you can extend to N numbers by exploiting the fact that

LCM(x0,x1,x2) = LCM(x0,LCM(x1,x2))

Note: Beware of overflows.

Code (in Python):

def gcd(a,b):
    return gcd(b,a%b) if b else a

def lcm(a,b):
    return a/gcd(a,b)*b

print reduce(lcm,range(2,21))

Answer 2

Factor all the integers from 1 to 20 into their prime factorizations. For example, factor 18 as 18 = 3^2 * 2. Now, for each prime number p that appears in the prime factorization of some integer in the range 1 to 20, find the maximum exponent that it has among all those prime factorizations. For example, the prime 3 will have exponent 2 because it appears in the factorization of 18 as 3^2 and if it appeared in any prime factorization with an exponent of 3 (i.e., 3^3), that number would have to be at least as large as 3^3 = 27 which it outside of the range 1 to 20. Now collect all of these primes with their corresponding exponent and you have the answer.

So, as example, let's find the smallest number evenly divisible by all the numbers from 1 to 4.

2 = 2^1
3 = 3^1
4 = 2^2

The primes that appear are 2 and 3. We note that the maximum exponent of 2 is 2 and the maximum exponent of 3 is 1. Thus, the smallest number that is evenly divisible by all the numbers from 1 to 4 is 2^2 * 3 = 12.

Here's a relatively straightforward implementation.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

std::vector<int> GetPrimes(int);
std::vector<int> Factor(int, const std::vector<int> &);

int main() {
    int n;
    std::cout << "Enter an integer: ";
    std::cin >> n;
    std::vector<int> primes = GetPrimes(n);
    std::vector<int> exponents(primes.size(), 0);

    for(int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
        std::vector<int> factors = Factor(i, primes);
        for(int i = 0; i < exponents.size(); i++) {
            if(factors[i] > exponents[i]) exponents[i] = factors[i];
        }
    }

    int p = 1;
    for(int i = 0; i < primes.size(); i++) {
            for(int j = 0; j < exponents[i]; j++) {
            p *= primes[i];
        }
    }

    std::cout << "Answer: " << p << std::endl;
}

std::vector<int> GetPrimes(int max) {
    bool *isPrime = new bool[max + 1];
    for(int i = 0; i <= max; i++) {
        isPrime[i] = true;
    }
    isPrime[0] = isPrime[1] = false;
    int p = 2;
    while(p <= max) {
        if(isPrime[p]) {
            for(int j = 2; p * j <= max; j++) {
                isPrime[p * j] = false;
            }
        }
        p++;
    }

    std::vector<int> primes;

    for(int i = 0; i <= max; i++) {
        if(isPrime[i]) primes.push_back(i);
    }

    delete []isPrime;
    return primes;
}

std::vector<int> Factor(int n, const std::vector<int> &primes) {
    std::vector<int> exponents(primes.size(), 0);
    while(n > 1) {
        for(int i = 0; i < primes.size(); i++) {
        if(n % primes[i] == 0) { 
        exponents[i]++;
            n /= primes[i];
        break;
        }
            }
    }
    return exponents;
}

Sample output:

Enter an integer: 20
Answer: 232792560

Answer 3

There is a faster way to answer the problem, using number theory. Other answers contain indications how to do this. This answer is only about a better way to write the if condition in your original code.

If you only want to replace the long condition, you can express it more nicely in a for loop:

 if ((num%2) == 0 && (num%3) == 0 && (num%4) == 0    && (num%5) == 0 && (num%6) == 0 
&& (num%7) == 0 && (num%8) == 0 && (num%9) == 0 && (num%10) == 0 && (num%11) == 0 && (num%12) ==0   
&& (num%13) == 0 && (num%14) == 0 && (num%15) == 0 && (num%16) == 0 && (num%17) == 0 && (num%18)==0
&& (num%19) == 0    && (num%20) == 0)     
{ ... }

becomes:

{
  int divisor; 
  for (divisor=2; divisor<=20; divisor++)
    if (num%divisor != 0)
      break;
  if (divisor != 21)
  { ...}
}

The style is not great but I think this is what you were looking for.

Answer 4

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_common_divisor Given two numbers a and b you can compute gcd(a, b) and the smallest number divisible by both is a * b / gcd(a, b). The obvious thing then to do is to keep a sort of running total of this and add in the numbers you care about one by one: you have an answer so far A and you add in the next number X_i to consider by putting

A' = A * X_i / (gcd(A, X_i))

You can see that this actually works by considering what you get if you factorise everything and write them out as products of primes. This should pretty much allow you to work out the answer by hand.