Prime number calculation fun

Question

We\'re having a bit of fun here at work. It all started with one of the guys setting up a Hackintosh and we were wondering whether it was faster than a Windows Box of (nearl

Answer 1

Since you're searching for them in ascending order, you could keep a list of the primes you've already found and only check for divisibility against them, since all non-prime numbers can be reduced to a list of lesser prime factors. Combine that with the previous tip about not checking for factors over the square root of the current number, and you'll have yourself a pretty darn efficient implementation.