@ParulSinha wrote:
I got this puzzle in one of the Blogs. Solution is also provided but still need help to understand the same.
My question is - given this puzzle how and why would you think of using binary and taking complement. what does complement signify wrt puzzle
puzzle-
N persons are standing in a circle. They are labelled from 1 to N in clockwise order. Every one of them is holding a gun and can shoot a person on his left. Starting from person 1, they starts shooting in order e.g for N=100, person 1 shoots person 2, then person 3 shoots person 4, then person 5 shoots person 6………then person 99 shoots person 100, then person 1 shoots person 3, then person 5 shoots person 7……and it continues till all are dead except one. What’s the index of that last person ?Solution-
Write 100 in binary, which is 1100100 and take the complement which is 11011 and it is 27. Subtract the complement from the original number. So 100 – 27 = 73.Try it out for 50 people. 50 = 110010 in binary.
Complement is 1101 = 13. Therefore, 50 – 13 = 37.
For the number in form 2^n, it will be the first person. Let’s take an example:
64 = 1000000
Complement = 111111 = 63.
64-63 = 1.
You can apply this for any ’n’.
**Also where can I get more puzzle and case study’s for practise. **
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