Euler problem #6

Find the difference between the sum of the squares of the first one hundred natural numbers and the square of the sum.

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We don't actually need a computer to solve this problem, but why not?

 

The formula for the sum of the squares of the first n natural numbers is:  n*(n+1)*(2n+1)/6 .

The formula for the sum of the first n natural numbers is:  n(n+1)/2 .

 

We can write this in ruby:

 

def sumToN(n)

   (n*(n+1))/2

end

 

def sumOfSquares(n)

  (n*(n+1)*(2*n+1))/6

end

 

puts sumToN(100)**2 - sumOfSquares(100)

 

Note that you don't need an explicit return statement.  The last expression in any function will be returned by default.

Published Mon, Oct 27 2008 12:11 PM by mfedner
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