The Lazy Caterer’s Problem


http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/the-lazy-caterers-problem/
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/pizza-cut-problem-circle-division-lines/
Given an integer n, denoting the number of cuts that can be made on a pancake, find the maximum number of pieces that can be formed by making n cuts.
Let f(n) denote the maximum number of pieces
that can be obtained by making n cuts.
Trivially,
f(0) = 1                                 
As there'd be only 1 piece without any cut.

Similarly,
f(1) = 2

Proceeding in similar fashion we can deduce 
the recursive nature of the function.
The function can be represented recursively as :
f(n) = n + f(n-1)

Hence a simple solution based on the above 
formula can run in O(n). 
We can optimize above formula.
We now know ,
f(n) = n + f(n-1) 

Expanding f(n-1) and so on we have ,
f(n) = n + n-1 + n-2 + ...... + 1 + f(0)

which gives,
f(n) = (n*(n+1))/2 + 1

int findPieces(int n)
{
    // Use the formula
    return (n*(n+1))/2 + 1;
}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_caterer%27s_sequence
The lazy caterer's sequence, more formally known as the central polygonal numbers, describes the maximum number of pieces of a disk (a pancakeor pizza is usually used to describe the situation) that can be made with a given number of straight cuts. For example, three cuts across a pancake will produce six pieces if the cuts all meet at a common point inside the circle, but up to seven if they do not. This problem can be formalized mathematically as one of counting the cells in an arrangement of lines; for generalizations to higher dimensions, see arrangement of hyperplanes.

When a circle is cut n times to produce the maximum number of pieces, represented as p = ƒ(n), the nth cut must be considered; the number of pieces before the last cut is ƒ(n − 1), while the number of pieces added by the last cut is n.
To obtain the maximum number of pieces, the nth cut line should cross all the other previous cut lines inside the circle, but not cross any intersection of previous cut lines. Thus, the nth line itself is cut in n − 1 places, and into n line segments. Each segment divides one piece of the (n − 1)-cut pancake into 2 parts, adding exactly n to the number of pieces. The new line can't have any more segments since it can only cross each previous line once. A cut line can always cross over all previous cut lines, as rotating the knife at a small angle around a point that is not an existing intersection will, if the angle is small enough, intersect all the previous lines including the last one added.
Thus, the total number of pieces after n cuts is

Labels

LeetCode (1432) GeeksforGeeks (1122) LeetCode - Review (1067) Review (882) Algorithm (668) to-do (609) Classic Algorithm (270) Google Interview (237) Classic Interview (222) Dynamic Programming (220) DP (186) Bit Algorithms (145) POJ (141) Math (137) Tree (132) LeetCode - Phone (129) EPI (122) Cracking Coding Interview (119) DFS (115) Difficult Algorithm (115) Lintcode (115) Different Solutions (110) Smart Algorithm (104) Binary Search (96) BFS (91) HackerRank (90) Binary Tree (86) Hard (79) Two Pointers (78) Stack (76) Company-Facebook (75) BST (72) Graph Algorithm (72) Time Complexity (69) Greedy Algorithm (68) Interval (63) Company - Google (62) Geometry Algorithm (61) Interview Corner (61) LeetCode - Extended (61) Union-Find (60) Trie (58) Advanced Data Structure (56) List (56) Priority Queue (53) Codility (52) ComProGuide (50) LeetCode Hard (50) Matrix (50) Bisection (48) Segment Tree (48) Sliding Window (48) USACO (46) Space Optimization (45) Company-Airbnb (41) Greedy (41) Mathematical Algorithm (41) Tree - Post-Order (41) ACM-ICPC (40) Algorithm Interview (40) Data Structure Design (40) Graph (40) Backtracking (39) Data Structure (39) Jobdu (39) Random (39) Codeforces (38) Knapsack (38) LeetCode - DP (38) Recursive Algorithm (38) String Algorithm (38) TopCoder (38) Sort (37) Introduction to Algorithms (36) Pre-Sort (36) Beauty of Programming (35) Must Known (34) Binary Search Tree (33) Follow Up (33) prismoskills (33) Palindrome (32) Permutation (31) Array (30) Google Code Jam (30) HDU (30) Array O(N) (29) Logic Thinking (29) Monotonic Stack (29) Puzzles (29) Code - Detail (27) Company-Zenefits (27) Microsoft 100 - July (27) Queue (27) Binary Indexed Trees (26) TreeMap (26) to-do-must (26) 1point3acres (25) GeeksQuiz (25) Merge Sort (25) Reverse Thinking (25) hihocoder (25) Company - LinkedIn (24) Hash (24) High Frequency (24) Summary (24) Divide and Conquer (23) Proof (23) Game Theory (22) Topological Sort (22) Lintcode - Review (21) Tree - Modification (21) Algorithm Game (20) CareerCup (20) Company - Twitter (20) DFS + Review (20) DP - Relation (20) Brain Teaser (19) DP - Tree (19) Left and Right Array (19) O(N) (19) Sweep Line (19) UVA (19) DP - Bit Masking (18) LeetCode - Thinking (18) KMP (17) LeetCode - TODO (17) Probabilities (17) Simulation (17) String Search (17) Codercareer (16) Company-Uber (16) Iterator (16) Number (16) O(1) Space (16) Shortest Path (16) itint5 (16) DFS+Cache (15) Dijkstra (15) Euclidean GCD (15) Heap (15) LeetCode - Hard (15) Majority (15) Number Theory (15) Rolling Hash (15) Tree Traversal (15) Brute Force (14) Bucket Sort (14) DP - Knapsack (14) DP - Probability (14) Difficult (14) Fast Power Algorithm (14) Pattern (14) Prefix Sum (14) TreeSet (14) Algorithm Videos (13) Amazon Interview (13) Basic Algorithm (13) Codechef (13) Combination (13) Computational Geometry (13) DP - Digit (13) LCA (13) LeetCode - DFS (13) Linked List (13) Long Increasing Sequence(LIS) (13) Math-Divisible (13) Reservoir Sampling (13) mitbbs (13) Algorithm - How To (12) Company - Microsoft (12) DP - Interval (12) DP - Multiple Relation (12) DP - Relation Optimization (12) LeetCode - Classic (12) Level Order Traversal (12) Prime (12) Pruning (12) Reconstruct Tree (12) Thinking (12) X Sum (12) AOJ (11) Bit Mask (11) Company-Snapchat (11) DP - Space Optimization (11) Dequeue (11) Graph DFS (11) MinMax (11) Miscs (11) Princeton (11) Quick Sort (11) Stack - Tree (11) 尺取法 (11) 挑战程序设计竞赛 (11) Coin Change (10) DFS+Backtracking (10) Facebook Hacker Cup (10) Fast Slow Pointers (10) HackerRank Easy (10) Interval Tree (10) Limited Range (10) Matrix - Traverse (10) Monotone Queue (10) SPOJ (10) Starting Point (10) States (10) Stock (10) Theory (10) Tutorialhorizon (10) Kadane - Extended (9) Mathblog (9) Max-Min Flow (9) Maze (9) Median (9) O(32N) (9) Quick Select (9) Stack Overflow (9) System Design (9) Tree - Conversion (9) Use XOR (9) Book Notes (8) Company-Amazon (8) DFS+BFS (8) DP - States (8) Expression (8) Longest Common Subsequence(LCS) (8) One Pass (8) Quadtrees (8) Traversal Once (8) Trie - Suffix (8) 穷竭搜索 (8) Algorithm Problem List (7) All Sub (7) Catalan Number (7) Cycle (7) DP - Cases (7) Facebook Interview (7) Fibonacci Numbers (7) Flood fill (7) Game Nim (7) Graph BFS (7) HackerRank Difficult (7) Hackerearth (7) Inversion (7) Kadane’s Algorithm (7) Manacher (7) Morris Traversal (7) Multiple Data Structures (7) Normalized Key (7) O(XN) (7) Radix Sort (7) Recursion (7) Sampling (7) Suffix Array (7) Tech-Queries (7) Tree - Serialization (7) Tree DP (7) Trie - Bit (7) 蓝桥杯 (7) Algorithm - Brain Teaser (6) BFS - Priority Queue (6) BFS - Unusual (6) Classic Data Structure Impl (6) DP - 2D (6) DP - Monotone Queue (6) DP - Unusual (6) DP-Space Optimization (6) Dutch Flag (6) How To (6) Interviewstreet (6) Knapsack - MultiplePack (6) Local MinMax (6) MST (6) Minimum Spanning Tree (6) Number - Reach (6) Parentheses (6) Pre-Sum (6) Probability (6) Programming Pearls (6) Rabin-Karp (6) Reverse (6) Scan from right (6) Schedule (6) Stream (6) Subset Sum (6) TSP (6) Xpost (6) n00tc0d3r (6) reddit (6) AI (5) Abbreviation (5) Anagram (5) Art Of Programming-July (5) Assumption (5) Bellman Ford (5) Big Data (5) Code - Solid (5) Code Kata (5) Codility-lessons (5) Coding (5) Company - WMware (5) Convex Hull (5) Crazyforcode (5) DFS - Multiple (5) DFS+DP (5) DP - Multi-Dimension (5) DP-Multiple Relation (5) Eulerian Cycle (5) Graph - Unusual (5) Graph Cycle (5) Hash Strategy (5) Immutability (5) Java (5) LogN (5) Manhattan Distance (5) Matrix Chain Multiplication (5) N Queens (5) Pre-Sort: Index (5) Quick Partition (5) Quora (5) Randomized Algorithms (5) Resources (5) Robot (5) SPFA(Shortest Path Faster Algorithm) (5) Shuffle (5) Sieve of Eratosthenes (5) Strongly Connected Components (5) Subarray Sum (5) Sudoku (5) Suffix Tree (5) Swap (5) Threaded (5) Tree - Creation (5) Warshall Floyd (5) Word Search (5) jiuzhang (5)

Popular Posts