Java Program to Check Whether a Number can be Expressed as Sum of Two Prime Numbers

In this program, you'll learn to check whether a given number can be expressed as a sum of two prime numbers or not. This is done with the help of loops and break statements in Java.

To understand this example, you should have the knowledge of the following Java programming topics:


Example: Represent a number as Sum of Two Prime Numbers

public class Main {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int number = 34;
    boolean flag = false;
    for (int i = 2; i <= number / 2; ++i) {

      // condition for i to be a prime number
      if (checkPrime(i)) {

        // condition for n-i to be a prime number
        if (checkPrime(number - i)) {

          // n = primeNumber1 + primeNumber2
          System.out.printf("%d = %d + %d\n", number, i, number - i);
          flag = true;
        }

      }
    }

    if (!flag)
      System.out.println(number + " cannot be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers.");
  }

  // Function to check prime number
  static boolean checkPrime(int num) {
    boolean isPrime = true;

    for (int i = 2; i <= num / 2; ++i) {
      if (num % i == 0) {
        isPrime = false;
        break;
      }
    }

    return isPrime;
  }
}

Output

34 = 3 + 31
34 = 5 + 29
34 = 11 + 23
34 = 17 + 17

In the above example, we have created the checkPrime() method to find whether a number is prime or not. The method returns true if the passed number is prime.

Here, we have a number 34. The program tries to check if 34 can be represented as the sum of two prime numbers.

Working of Program

  • First, we run a for loop from i = 2 to number / 2.
  • Inside the for loop, we used two if statements. The first statement checks if i is prime or not.

    If true, the second if statement checks if number - i is prime or not. This is because the sum of i and number - i is equal to number.
  • If the second statement is also true, then we can say the number 34 is a valid sum of two prime numbers.
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