For all the programmers out there, I'm throwing out a challenge. Who ever got the best result will get Sajha Programmer Award. lol
Here's the challenge.
Using any programming language, find out the largest nth prime in under 60 seconds.
Which means: you have to write a most efficient code to compute the largest prime within the limit of 1 minute. (For example: give input of 100000. code has to compute 1,00,000th prime number which is 1,299,709. But it has to finish the execution under 60 second. )

What kind of question is this? You understand compute time depends on machine's CPU, RAM, programs it's running etc. Even "Hello World" could take days.

It would be very difficult to find a machine that takes days to run Hello world now. lol
But you are right, sajhamitra, use the best PC you can get access to and mention the specs when you post the result.

जाभा ब्रो, मैले भी.बि डट नेटमा कोड गरेको हो है ! मेरो रिजल्ट सेकेन्डमा नभई मिलिसेकेंदमा छ ! तेसैले यो पुरस्कार मलाई नै जान्छ भन्ने आशा लिएको छु है त् ब्रो !

Module Module1
 
    Sub Main()
        Dim ps As Class1 = New Class1()
        Dim result As New List(Of Integer)
        Dim sw As Stopwatch = New Stopwatch()
        sw.Start()
        result = ps.SieveOfEratosthenes(1299719)
        sw.Stop()
        Dim counter As Double
        For Each item In result
            Console.WriteLine(item)
            counter = counter + 1
        Next
        Console.WriteLine("Total Time Elapsed: {0}", sw.Elapsed)
        Console.WriteLine("Nth position: {0}", counter)
        Console.WriteLine("Programmed by Nasty Nas :)")
        Console.ReadLine()
    End Sub
 
End Module


Public Class Class1
    Public Function SieveOfEratosthenes(ByVal N As Integer) As List(Of Integer)
        'Stores all the prime numbers
        Dim result As New List(Of Integer)
 
        'We need an boolean array that indicates if the number is a prime
        Dim IsPrime As New List(Of Boolean)
 
        'Fill the array with all true values and we will start at the number 2
        For i As Integer = 0 To N - 2
            IsPrime.Add(True)
        Next
 
        'Find and store how many numbers we need to check
        Dim NumberOfPrimeChecks As Integer = CInt(Math.Sqrt(N))
 
        'Start checking at the number 2
        Dim CurrentNumber As Integer = 2
 
        'Loop through all the nessecary checks 
        For i As Integer = 0 To NumberOfPrimeChecks - 1
            If IsPrime(i) Then
                'if the number 2 is prime the number 4 is not etc...
                For j As Integer = i + CurrentNumber To IsPrime.Count - 1 Step CurrentNumber
                    IsPrime(j) = False
                Next
            End If
            'Increments the counter
            CurrentNumber += 1
        Next
 
        'Print the stored result in our list based on the boolean values
        For i As Integer = 0 To IsPrime.Count - 1
            If IsPrime(i) Then
                result.Add(i + 2)
            End If
        Next
 
        Return result
    End Function
 
End Class

Hey Nas, I appreciate your sharpness on googling and cut pasting the code. There are tons of code you can find with the word SieveOfEratosthenes function in various languages.

At least you should have changed the function name and some variable names and return variable name.

Anyway, I appreciate your aggressiveness in exploring the solutions.

By the way, I don't like VB.net. I am C# guy.

400000 th prime is 5800079
56.246999979 seconds

Process finished with exit code 0

So far i can find 400,000th prime within 1 minute.
Nas bro, try to find the largest prime within 1 minutes limit..

"At least you should have changed the function name and some variable names and return variable name."

नेपालीभाई ब्रो ! त्यो कलेजमा साथीको कोड कपि गरेर फंक्सन नेम चेन्ज गरेर प्रोफेसरलाइ बुझाने असैन्मेंट जस्तो कहा हो र यो च्यालेन्ज ! किनकी हाम्रो जाभा ब्रो अल्गोरिदमका गुरु हुनुहुन्छ, मैले सिब अफ एरातोसठेनेस को अल्गोरिथ्म इउज गरेको हुँ भनेर देखाउन, एक्स्प्लिसितली तेही फंक्सन इउज गरेको हुँ ! जाभाब्रोलाइ पक्कै पनि त्येस बारे थाहा हुँन पर्छ किनकि यो मोस्ट एफ़िसिएन्त अल्गोरिथ्म हो, यो प्रब्लम सल्भ गर्नको लागि !

म पनि सी शार्प नै हुँ ! तर अहिलेको यो प्रोजेक्ट चै भी बि हो ! मलाई सी शार्प मन पर्छ तर अहिले यो प्रोजेक्टले गर्दा अलिक भी बिको पनि माया लाग्न थाल्यो !

अनि अहिलेको देभेलोपमेन्ट साइकल भनेकै ....

जाभा ब्रो खोइ त् मेरो "साझा प्रोग्र्यमर अवार्ड" ! हिजो झन् काममा लुकी लुकी आफ्नो काम नगरी यो प्रोग्राम लेखि बसेको ! ल प्लिज एउटा सर्टिफिकेट को जेपीजी भएनी पुरस्कार दिन पर्यो नि ब्रो ! म मेरो प्रोफाइलमा सजाएर राक्चु नि !

आइ एम सो प्राउद अफ माइ एचिभमेन्ट इन साझा ! थ्याँकिउ सोमच जाभा ब्रो 😄

Is this correct? Runs for a minute, output is
1137030nth prime number is 17752279


import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

public class PrimeTest
{
public static void main(final String args[])
{
long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
long currentTime = start;
long count = 0;
long numberToCheck = 1;
long primeNumber = numberToCheck;
while(start < currentTime + TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(60))
{
if (isPrime(numberToCheck))
{
count ++;
primeNumber = numberToCheck;
}
numberToCheck ++;
start = System.currentTimeMillis();
}

System.out.println(count + "th prime number is " + primeNumber);
}

/**
* @param numberToCheck
* @return
*/
private static boolean isPrime(final long numberToCheck)
{
for (int divisor = 2; divisor < Math.sqrt(numberToCheck); divisor ++)
{
if (numberToCheck % divisor == 0)
{
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
}

Prankster : the result is impressive >1.1m th prime within a minute, but the answer doesn't look correct.