Problem 26 was the first Project Euler problem I've yet encountered that I had to do research to solve. The problem asks for the integer under 1,000 whose reciprocal has the longest recurring cycle in its infinitely repeating decimal representation:

A unit fraction contains 1 in the numerator. The decimal representation of the unit fractions with denominators 2 to 10 are given:

1/2= 0.5
1/3= 0.(3)
1/4= 0.25
1/5= 0.2
1/6= 0.1(6)
1/7= 0.(142857)
1/8= 0.125
1/9= 0.(1)
1/10= 0.1

Where 0.1(6) means 0.166666…, and has a 1-digit recurring cycle. It can be seen that 1/7 has a 6-digit recurring cycle.

Find the value of d < 1000 for which 1/_d_ contains the longest recurring cycle in its decimal fraction part.

This is the first problem in Project Euler to ask about non-integral values and it is designed to be unsolvable by floating-point arithmetic, as many terminating decimal values are repeating when represented as binary numerals: 1/10, for example, is 0.1 in base-10 but 0.00011 in binary. After some time reading basic number theory on Wolfram and Wikipedia, I found a few rules that could be used to find the answer:

  • First, only denominators that are both prime and coprime with 10 should be evaluated. Non-prime denominators can resolve into a repeating decimal, but it will be preceded by a non-repeating sequence, and the length of the recurring cycle will be equal to that of its smallest prime factor coprime with 10. For example, 14 isn't prime, and 1/14 has a recurring cycle in its infinitely repeating decimal, but the length of that cycle is equal to the length of the recurring cycle in 1/7, i.e., the reciprocal of the smallest prime factor of 14 not coprime with 10.
  • Second, the length of the recurring cycle of a repeating decimal 1/x is equal to p when 10p mod x = 1.
  • Third, solving the problem by applying the above rule would involve manipulating huge numbers, i.e., BigIntegers

The large amount of BigInteger arithmetic in my code meant that it took a couple of seconds to execute, but it did work.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace Problem026
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int ceiling = 1000;
            int[] repeatingPeriod = new int[ceiling];
            List<int> primesUnderCeiling = sieveOfEratosthenes(ceiling);
            int hauptExponent = 0;
            foreach (int i in primesUnderCeiling)
            {
                if (1000000 % i == 0)
                {
                    repeatingPeriod[i] = 0;
                }
                else
                {
                    do
                    {
                        hauptExponent++;
                        repeatingPeriod[i] = hauptExponent;
                    } while (BigIntModulo(10, hauptExponent, i) != 1);
                    hauptExponent = 0;

                }
            }

            Console.WriteLine("Problem 26: {0}", Array.IndexOf(repeatingPeriod, repeatingPeriod.Max()));
        }

        private static int BigIntModulo(int p, int hauptExponent, int divisor)
        {
            System.Numerics.BigInteger power = p;
            int modulus = 0;

            for (int j = 1; j < hauptExponent; j++)
                power *= 10;

            modulus = (int)(power % divisor);

            return modulus;
        }

        private static List<int> sieveOfEratosthenes(int ceil)
        {
            List<int> eratosthenes = new List<int>();
            for (int i = 2; i < ceil; i++)
                eratosthenes.Add(i);
            for (int i = 0; i < eratosthenes.Count(); i++)
                eratosthenes.RemoveAll(x => (x != eratosthenes[i]) && (x % eratosthenes[i] == 0));

            return eratosthenes;
        }
    }
}