Original Post
Hello All,
One of my friends had an interview the other day and was given this puzzle(we always trade questions after such things).
"The exercise solves a coding problem that involves shuffling a deck of cards.
The problem description is as follows:
You are given a deck containing 313 cards. While holding the deck:
1. Take the top card off the deck and set it on the table
2. Take the next card off the top and put it on the bottom of the deck in
your hand.
3. Continue steps 1 and 2 until all cards are on the table. This is a round.
4. Pick up the deck from the table and repeat steps 1-3 until the deck is in
the original order.
Write a program to determine how many rounds it will take to put the deck back
into the original order."
So my view on this is that its basically a permutation group, and they would like to solve the equation p.p.p....=p^n=e. If this is the case, there is no better solution then determining p and applying it till you get back to where you started. Is that correct, or is there something I'm missing here?
Jesse
One of my friends had an interview the other day and was given this puzzle(we always trade questions after such things).
"The exercise solves a coding problem that involves shuffling a deck of cards.
The problem description is as follows:
You are given a deck containing 313 cards. While holding the deck:
1. Take the top card off the deck and set it on the table
2. Take the next card off the top and put it on the bottom of the deck in
your hand.
3. Continue steps 1 and 2 until all cards are on the table. This is a round.
4. Pick up the deck from the table and repeat steps 1-3 until the deck is in
the original order.
Write a program to determine how many rounds it will take to put the deck back
into the original order."
So my view on this is that its basically a permutation group, and they would like to solve the equation p.p.p....=p^n=e. If this is the case, there is no better solution then determining p and applying it till you get back to where you started. Is that correct, or is there something I'm missing here?
Jesse
