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        riddles >> easy >> Sole Survivor
        
(Message started by: mikedagr8 on Dec 7^th, 2008, 7:45pm)

Title: Sole Survivor
Post by mikedagr8 on Dec 7^th, 2008, 7:45pm

You are 1 of 1000 people in a circle and a decimation occurs. What position do you need to be in to be the last alive? Show your solution.

Title: Re: Sole Survivor
Post by ThudanBlunder on Dec 7^th, 2008, 7:54pm

Easy? Assuming you mean repeated decimation, when every other person is killed the problem (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/JosephusProblem.html) has an explicit solution. Otherwise, it doesn't and one needs to write a simple program, I think.

Title: Re: Sole Survivor
Post by mikedagr8 on Dec 8^th, 2008, 4:34am

Well, from what I understood of the link, yes that is the system I was after. My answer is [hide]976[/hide].

Title: Re: Sole Survivor
Post by towr on Dec 8^th, 2008, 9:46am

I seem to get 63.
Are you killing every tenth man, or every first nine? Or what?

Title: Re: Sole Survivor
Post by Grimbal on Dec 8^th, 2008, 10:01am

I find 63. But I count from 0.