Snippets tagged anagram

  • Anagrams

    Let's use the fundamental theorem of arithmetic to determine if two words are anagrams of each other. How? The theorem states (roughly) that each number can be written as a product of prime numbers in only one unique way. For instance 42 = 7 * 2 * 3 = 3 * 7 * 2. Now what will happen if you associate a letter with a unique prime number? You can see that "team" [71*11*2*41] = "meat" [41*11*2*71]. Oh, the possibilities. Note that in the code below big integers are used since the product of many primes will overflow a 32- or even a 64-bit integer.

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    Posted: 13 years ago by Arjen Kopinga