Script that finds the number of primes produced by the function x^2 - 2999x + 2248541 evaluated over a range of integers passed in as args. Produces 80 primes between 1460 and 1539 (inclusive). Inspired by this tweet from @AlgebraFact: https://twitter.com/AlgebraFact/status/757674572254674944

primes_in_range.py

#!/usr/bin/python
"""
	Finds the number of primes produced by the function x^2 - 2999x + 2248541 
	evaluated over a range of integers passed in as args. Produces 80 primes 
	between 1460 and 1539 (inclusive). Inspired by this tweet from @AlgebraFact: 
	https://twitter.com/AlgebraFact/status/757674572254674944
	
	Usage:
	    ./primes_in_range.py <lower bound> <upper bound>
"""
import math
import sys

def check_prime(num):
	a = 2
	while a < num:
		if num % a == 0 and a!=num:
			return False
		a += 1
	return True

def main(argv):
	prime_count = 0

	if len(argv) == 0:
		lower = 1460
		upper = 1539 # there should be 80 consecutive primes in this range!
	else:
		lower = int(argv[0])
		upper = int(argv[1])

	for x in range(lower, upper + 1):
		y = x**2 - 2999*x + 2248541
		print "f(%d) = %d" %(x,y)

		prime_bool = check_prime(y)

		if prime_bool == True:
			print "  %d is prime" %y
			prime_count += 1

	print "found %d primes between %d and %d" %(prime_count, lower, upper)

if __name__ == "__main__":
	main(sys.argv[1:])