Sieve of Eratosthenes

Instructions: Make a list of all the integers less than or equal to n (and greater than one). Strike out the multiples of numbers remaining, starting from 2. Then the numbers that are left are the primes.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90
91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

If you're interested in computer programming, then you might take a look at http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/bench/sieve/, in which many different computer languages were used to solve this problem, and their performance compared. This illustrates another useful aspect of mathematics! It provides challenging benchmark problems....
Also visit http://ccins.camosun.bc.ca/~jbritton/jberatosthenes.htm.


Website maintained by Andy Long. Comments appreciated.