# Gilbreath's conjecture in Python

I've written some code for testing Gilbreath's conjecture in python (2.x). The conjecture was shown (in the 90s) to be true up to n=1012. My code uses the primesieve module to quickly generate primes and, by ignoring blocks of 0s and 2s, only calculates values in the array when necessary. However, it's quite slow; it makes heavy use of dictionary lookup, addition and deletion, and I expect would benefit from modification of this aspect.

def gilbreath(nMax):
import primesieve
def fill(D, j, k):
if (j, k-1) not in D:
fill(D, j, k-1)
D[(j, k)] = abs(D[(j+1, k-1)]-D[(j, k-1)])
# remove unneeded entries
if (j-1, k) in D:
del D[(j, k-1)]
if (j+1, k) in D:
del D[(j+1, k-1)]
primes = primesieve.Iterator()
D = {}
depthLeft, depth, maxDepth, nDepth = -1, -1, -1, -1
for n in xrange(1, nMax+1):
D[(n, 0)] = int(primes.next_prime())
j, k = n, 0
while (D[(j, k)] > 2) or (k <= depthLeft):
if D[(j, k)] > 2:
depth = k
j -= 1
k += 1
fill(D, j, k)
if (j == 1) and D[(j, k)] > 1:
print "conjecture false at n = %d" %n
depthLeft = depth
if depth > maxDepth:
maxDepth, nDepth = depth, n
print "max depth %d at n = %d of %d" %(maxDepth, nDepth, nMax)

• What is the example usage? The function returns nothing... Jan 15 '16 at 14:35
• @Caridorc I've edited the code to output stuff. Now gilbreath(100000) outputs max depth 96 at n = 92717 of 100000. The 90s work showed a maximum depth of 634 over 10^12 primes. The conjecture would be false if the depth were ever equal to n. Jan 15 '16 at 15:06
• @u003f so you're saying that it currently doesn't work correctly? Jan 15 '16 at 16:07
• @Dannnno The code works correctly. My question is whether its performance could be improved, so it could be used to test for larger values of nMax. Jan 15 '16 at 16:22
• Ah, it was unclear if it was a correctness or time issue for which you were unable to get the larger values, thanks Jan 15 '16 at 16:37

### 12% speed-up by simplification

Your code as is takes (with input 10**5):

max depth 96 at n = 92717 of 100000
4027699 function calls (3764972 primitive calls) in 9.303 seconds


I simplified it by removing the:

    if (j-1, k) in D:
del D[(j, k-1)]
if (j+1, k) in D:
del D[(j+1, k-1)]


And it runs in:

max depth 96 at n = 92717 of 100000
4027699 function calls (3764972 primitive calls) in 8.129 seconds


So it both runs faster and is less code to maintain, a win-win.

• Interesting. This is probably impossible to answer, but I wonder at what size of dictionary (if ever) it becomes more efficient to find and remove elements that won't be needed again? Bigger than 10^5, as we've seen. Jan 15 '16 at 17:04
• I find a reversal of this behaviour at 10**6; (on my little computer) the code takes 385s/243s with/out removal of these lines, a slow-down of 58%. Jan 17 '16 at 19:12

You should change the names of your variables according to the style guide:

Use the function naming rules: lowercase with words separated by underscores as necessary to improve readability.

For example, nMax should be n_max. re-writing this we get:

def gilbreath(n_max):
import primesieve
def fill(D, j, k):
if (j, k-1) not in D:
fill(D, j, k-1)
D[(j, k)] = abs(D[(j+1, k-1)]-D[(j, k-1)])
primes = primesieve.Iterator()
D = {}
depth_left, depth, max_depth, n_depth = -1, -1, -1, -1
for n in xrange(1, n_max+1):
D[(n, 0)] = int(primes.next_prime())
j, k = n, 0
while (D[(j, k)] > 2) or (k <= depth_left):
if D[(j, k)] > 2:
depth = k
j -= 1
k += 1
fill(D, j, k)
if (j == 1) and D[(j, k)] > 1:
print "conjecture false at n = %d" % n
depth_left = depth
if depth > max_depth:
max_depth, n_depth = depth, n
print "max depth %d at n = %d of %d" %(max_depth, n_depth, n_max)

gilbreath(100000)


(Well, with @Caridorc's optimization).

Using cProfile I get the following:

❯ python -m cProfile gilbreath.py
max depth 96 at n = 92717 of 100000
4027466 function calls (3764739 primitive calls) in 3.534 seconds

Ordered by: standard name

ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
1    0.001    0.001    0.001    0.001 __init__.py:1(<module>)
1    0.304    0.304    3.534    3.534 gilbreath.py:1(<module>)
1    1.192    1.192    3.230    3.230 gilbreath.py:1(gilbreath)
1963731/1701004    1.912    0.000    2.027    0.000 gilbreath.py:3(fill)
1963731    0.115    0.000    0.115    0.000 {abs}
1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {method 'disable' of '_lsprof.Profiler' objects}
100000    0.010    0.000    0.010    0.000 {method 'next_prime' of 'primesieve._primesieve.Iterator' objects}


Now, as for optimizations, I would consider using something like Cython.

Note: From here on I deal with Cython, if you are not interested in this, then all I have is naming advice.

For ease of use I use runcython to make build development easier. To optimize this code for Cython, declare some of the types for to be integer types.

# Change file name to gilbreath.pyx
def gilbreath(int n_max):
import primesieve
def fill(D, int j, int k):
if (j, k-1) not in D:
fill(D, j, k-1)
D[(j, k)] = abs(D[(j+1, k-1)]-D[(j, k-1)])
primes = primesieve.Iterator()
D = {}
cdef int depth_left, depth, max_depth, n_depth
depth_left, depth, max_depth, n_depth = -1, -1, -1, -1
for n in xrange(1, n_max+1):
D[(n, 0)] = int(primes.next_prime())
j, k = n, 0
while (D[(j, k)] > 2) or (k <= depth_left):
if D[(j, k)] > 2:
depth = k
j -= 1
k += 1
fill(D, j, k)
if (j == 1) and D[(j, k)] > 1:
print "conjecture false at n = %d" % n
depth_left = depth
if depth > max_depth:
max_depth, n_depth = depth, n
print "max depth %d at n = %d of %d" % (max_depth, n_depth, n_max)


Secondly, for testing I make a file called test_gil.py:

import gilbreath
gilbreath.gilbreath(100000)


Finally I run:

makecython gilbreath.pyx


And:

❯ python -m cProfile test_gil.py
max depth 96 at n = 92717 of 100000
4 function calls in 2.185 seconds

Ordered by: standard name

ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall filename:lineno(function)
1    0.001    0.001    0.001    0.001 __init__.py:1(<module>)
1    0.000    0.000    2.185    2.185 test_gil.py:1(<module>)
1    2.184    2.184    2.185    2.185 {gilbreath.gilbreath}
1    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000 {method 'disable' of '_lsprof.Profiler' objects}


Shaves off some more time. About a second or so.