General Discussion - Josephus Problem - Problem 32

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marvelcoder     2019-11-01 06:53:50

Hi,

I have a doubt regarding the explanation provided for this problem. If we take k=3 and kill every third person , we will end up with 4 and 10. Now with number 5 gone in last round, the weapon should ideally be in hands of number 10, so how come number 4 lives at the end of this round while number 10 meets its maker ? Glad if somone could break this down. Thanks in advance.

Tehel     2019-11-04 12:45:21

As I understood it, there's no question of where a weapon is, or even of who does the killing each time. It's simply about finding the third people after the one that just got killed. So after 5 disappeared, we have is 10, then 4, then 10, which so goes away. And 4 remains with a hard decision. (of course, that's only applicable the abstract probem, I too have doubts about the read-world implementation of the situation).

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