Related papers: Variations of a Coin-Removal Problem
Consider a coin tossing experiment which consists of tossing one of two coins at a time, according to a renewal process. The first coin is fair and the second has probability $1/2 + \theta$, $\theta \in [-1/2,1/2]$, $\theta$ unknown but…
How to turn the flip of a coin into a random variable whose expected value equals a scattering amplitude? We answer this question by constructing a numerical algorithm to evaluate curve integrals - a novel formulation of scattering…
As in many coin puzzles, we have several identical-looking coins, with one of them fake and the rest real. The real coins weigh the same. Our fake coin is special in that it can change its weight. The coin can pretend to be a real coin, a…
This note describes an algorithm for enumerating all the elements in a finite set based on uniformly random sampling from the set. This algorithm can be used for enumeration by fair sampling with quantum annealing. Our algorithm is based on…
Various forms of sorting problems have been studied over the years. Recently, two kinds of sorting puzzle apps are popularized. In these puzzles, we are given a set of bins filled with colored units, balls or water, and some empty bins.…
We introduce a computational origami problem which we call the segment folding problem: given a set of $n$ line-segments in the plane the aim is to make creases along all segments in the minimum number of folding steps. Note that a folding…
String consensus problems aim at finding a string that minimizes some given distance with respect to an input set of strings. In particular, in the Closest string problem, we are given a set of strings of equal length and a radius $d$. The…
We investigate the reconfiguration of $n$ blocks, or "tokens", in the square grid using "line pushes". A line push is performed from one of the four cardinal directions and pushes all tokens that are maximum in that direction to the…
We study in this paper a generalized coupon collector problem, which consists in determining the distribution and the moments of the time needed to collect a given number of distinct coupons that are drawn from a set of coupons with an…
In the picture-hanging puzzle we are to hang a picture so that the string loops around $n$ nails and the removal of any nail results in a fall of the picture. We show that the length of a sequence representing an element in the free group…
A face in a curve arrangement is called popular if it is bounded by the same curve multiple times. Motivated by the automatic generation of curved nonogram puzzles, we investigate possibilities to eliminate the popular faces in an…
We consider the computational complexity of the question whether a certain strategy can be removed from a game by means of iterated elimination of dominated strategies. In particular, we study the influence of different definitions of…
In this paper, we consider the minimal doubly resolving set problem in Hamming graphs, hypercubes and folded hypercubes. We prove that the minimal doubly resolving set problem in hypercubes is equivalent to the coin weighing problem. Then…
In this article, we describe an algorithm to determine whether a permutation class C given by a finite basis B of excluded patterns contains a finite number of simple permutations. This is a continuation of the work initiated in [Brignall,…
Separation is a classical problem in mathematics and computer science. It asks whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by another set of a smaller class. We present and discuss the separation problem…
A pattern p (i.e., a string of variables and terminals) matches a word w, if w can be obtained by uniformly replacing the variables of p by terminal words. The respective matching problem, i.e., deciding whether or not a given pattern…
What is the average number of tosses needed before a particular sequence of heads and tails turns up? We solve the problem didactically, starting with doubles, finding that a tail, followed by a head, turns up on the average after only four…
We study a problem related to coin flipping, coding theory, and noise sensitivity. Consider a source of truly random bits $x \in \bits^n$, and $k$ parties, who have noisy versions of the source bits $y^i \in \bits^n$, where for all $i$ and…
In card games, in casino games with multiple decks of cards and in cryptography, one is sometimes faced with the following problem: how can a human (as opposed to a computer) shuffle a large deck of cards? The procedure we study is to break…
Consider the puzzle: given a number, remove $k$ digits such that the resulting number is as large as possible. Various techniques were employed to derive a linear-time solution to the puzzle: predicate logic was used to justify the…