Recommended reading for solving Project Euler problems?

Question

Can anyone suggest any mathematical or programming books that have helped you progress in your learning whilst completing the project Euler problems? Even some suggestions for study areas or appropriate websites would be much appreciated.

Background

So far I've done a fair few of the Project Euler problems (I'm close to level 3). For the earlier problems it was easy to look things up on mathworld and wikipedia. For other problems Mathematica has been helpful. Now, it's getting to the point where I don't even know the names of some of the processes that are mentioned in the solution forum posts. Recently, I've found Proofs from THE BOOK to be quite helpful, but I'm looking for other reading material.

Answer 1

My 2 cents:

I solved all Project Euler problems without looking too much up about the background. If I need to understand a word, okay. It really helped me to get in inside view of mathematical problems. So, I would suggest not to read so much about the problems before you solved them.

Afterwards it is really entertaining to get in touch with the background of the problem.

Recommended reading:

Steve Yegge Blog

Answer 2

Don't expect too much from a book.

Davenport's Higher Arithmetic: it has a nice introduction to continued fractions, and IIRC it explains how to derive the standard enumeration formula for Pythagorean and similar triples. Theres a lot more about solving Diophantine equations, but I didn't find it too interesting.

A math reference (Bronstein in my case): Helped me with formulas for triangles, ellipses and cube roots.

Some of the best stuff is in the forum threads after solving a problem, read it carefully.

Otherwise I also look up stuff on Wikipedia, and Mathworld.

Generally helpful math and algorithm background:

• Modulo

• Dynamic programming

• Sieving

• Combinatorics (Permutations, Combinations, Partitions and how to enumerate them)

• Estimating the runtime of possible solutions

But since you solved 100+ problems you probably know that.

Edit: I forgot to mention Diophantine Analysis by Carmichael.

Answer 3

via http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=872254

http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Online+Resources

there's usually a pattern involved, so get to Slone's: http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/