calculate the 10001st prime number

[topologh]

I'm learning python by following project euler. Q7 asks you to calculate the 10001st prime.

i did the following (in pseudocode):

def div(n): makes a list of all the divisors.
def prim(n): checks if n is prime by check the list of all divisors. If len(div(n)) == 2, 2 is prime.

then i asked the computer to find all primes from 1 to 100000 with the above functions:


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y = []  
m = 1 
while m < 100000:
  if prim(m) == True: y = y + [m]
  m = m + 1

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but of course, it was taking too long.

Is there an easier way of doing this?

What i'm doing now is: I'm calculating how many primes are there between 0k and 10k, then 10k to 20k, then 20k to 30k.... summing the quantities, and when it gets to 10001, i print the primes and look for it. but this is a terrible solution....