Timeline for Optimal search puzzle
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 28, 2023 at 19:55 | history | edited | Brian Hopkins | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 27, 2023 at 23:32 | comment | added | Timothy Chow | (continued) This rewrite is wordier, but it spells out explicitly that you're applying the operations sequentially to a single starting value, and that what you're trying to minimize is the expected time to reach 1 for the first time. These details can be plausibly inferred from your more concise description, but it's more "professional" to spell out such details explicitly, so as to remove all doubt about your intended question. There is also no need to use the word "puzzle." | |
| Sep 27, 2023 at 20:36 | comment | added | Timothy Chow | @jackisquizzical Here's how I might write your first paragraph. Fix a positive integer $t$. Let $D$ denote the operation of replacing a given integer $n$ by $n-1$, and let $R$ denote the operation of replacing a given integer $n$ by a positive integer chosen uniformly at random from $\{1,2,\ldots,t\}$. Given a starting value $n_0$, we may apply any sequence of $D$'s and $R$'s we like to $n_0$. Our goal is to minimize the expected time to reach 1 for the first time. What is the optimal sequence of $D$'s and $R$'s? | |
| Sep 26, 2023 at 6:05 | vote | accept | jackisquizzical | ||
| Sep 25, 2023 at 12:55 | comment | added | Gerry Myerson | "subtract $1$" isn't an operator on $\{1,2,\dotsc,1000\}$, since you can't apply it to the element $1$. | |
| Sep 25, 2023 at 10:05 | history | edited | YCor | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 25, 2023 at 8:26 | review | Close votes | |||
| Sep 30, 2023 at 3:08 | |||||
| Sep 25, 2023 at 2:16 | comment | added | jackisquizzical | What is amateurish about they writing? (Not defensive; Trying to learn.) The problem actually was posed by my 14 year old son, so perhaps it’s not too surprising that it’s amateurish as he’s an amateur. :-) | |
| Sep 25, 2023 at 0:27 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Sep 25, 2023 at 0:02 | answer | added | Karl Fabian | timeline score: 16 | |
| Sep 24, 2023 at 20:08 | history | reopened |
Dattier RobPratt Sam Hopkins Dag Oskar Madsen M.G. |
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| Sep 24, 2023 at 18:30 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 24, 2023 at 20:10 | |||||
| Sep 24, 2023 at 18:12 | history | closed |
M.G. Daniele Tampieri user44191 Max Horn abx |
Not suitable for this site | |
| Sep 24, 2023 at 18:07 | history | edited | RobPratt |
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| Sep 24, 2023 at 17:48 | comment | added | Sam Hopkins | It's written in an amateurish way, but I don't think this question is completely trivial, so the downvotes seems excessive to me. | |
| Sep 24, 2023 at 17:25 | answer | added | RobPratt | timeline score: 16 | |
| Sep 24, 2023 at 17:20 | comment | added | jackisquizzical | Yes, that's correct. | |
| Sep 24, 2023 at 16:48 | review | Close votes | |||
| Sep 24, 2023 at 18:17 | |||||
| Sep 24, 2023 at 16:33 | comment | added | Joseph Van Name | Can you specify what you mean by optimality? For example, do you want to minimize the expected value of the number of steps that we take to reach 1? | |
| Sep 24, 2023 at 16:31 | history | edited | jackisquizzical | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 3 characters in body
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| S Sep 24, 2023 at 16:23 | review | First questions | |||
| Sep 24, 2023 at 17:02 | |||||
| S Sep 24, 2023 at 16:23 | history | asked | jackisquizzical | CC BY-SA 4.0 |