Problem
"The sum of the primes below 10 is 2 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 17. Find the sum of all the primes below two million."
Solution
A prime number is a positive integer greater than 1 that has no positive integer divisors other than 1 and itself. In other words, a prime number is a number that cannot be evenly divided by any other number except 1 and itself. For example, the first few prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and so on. These numbers cannot be divided by any other integer except 1 and themselves, making them prime.
- We define the primess function, which takes one argument, n, representing the upper limit for prime generation.
- We initialize a boolean list, is_prime, of length n + 1, where each element initially represents whether a number is prime (True) or not (False). We mark 0 and 1 as non-prime.
- Using a loop that iterates from 2 to the square root of limit, we iterate through each number and check if it is marked as prime in the is_prime list. If it is, we mark its multiples as non-prime.
- After the loop finishes, the is_prime list contains True values at indices corresponding to prime numbers.
- We create a list, prime_numbers, that stores the prime numbers found by enumerating the indices of is_prime where the value is True.
- Finally, we calculate the sum of all prime numbers below two million using the sum function.
Solving Project Euler Problems provides a great opportunity to practice coding and algorithmic thinking.









