Euler Problem 5

2520 is the smallest number that can be divided by each of the numbers from 1 to 10 without any remainder.

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

Powershell Solution:

This can be done manually (pen/paper) using prime factorization.
However, since I love powershell… We’ll use it with prime factorization in mind…

1. function Get-Factors($number) 
2. { 
3.     [Array]$result = {1} 
4.     $factor = 2 
5.     while($number -gt 1) 
6.     { 
7.         if($number%$factor -eq 0) 
8.         { 
9.             $result += $factor 
10.             $number /= $factor 
11.         }  
12.         else 
13.         { 
14.             $factor += 1 
15.         } 
16.     }  
17.      
18.     return $result 
19. } 
20.  
21. function Get-NextMultiple($currentMultiple, $currentFactor) 
22. { 
23.     foreach($factor in Get-Factors($currentFactor)) 
24.     { 
25.         $currentMultiple = $currentMultiple * $factor.ToString() 
26.         if($currentMultiple%$currentFactor -eq 0) 
27.         { 
28.             return $currentMultiple 
29.         } 
30.     } 
31. } 
32.  
33. $currentMultiple = 1 
34. 1..20|foreach{($currentMultiple = Get-NextMultiple $currentMultiple $_)}|measure -max|%{$_.Maximum} 

Note: The solution may not be the optimized one… just a quick hack… I’ll revisit later for optimization if time permits… :-)