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The Josephus Problem - Numberphile

Numberphile · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Recreational & visual mathAlgorithms & data structures

What it is

Numberphile with Daniel Erman on the Josephus problem, where people in a circle are eliminated in turn. It shows how the survivor's position follows a neat pattern tied to powers of two and binary.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN cites it as an excellent example of solving small cases to find a pattern, and as a favorite puzzle with an elegant binary solution.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2022

What HN commenters said

  1. “There is an excellent numberphile video on Josephus problem”

    Examining instances to find patterns to solve the general case

    yantrams, 2018-06 · Recommendation · in “Dealing with Hard Problems (2015)”

  2. “I really like the Josephus Problem”

    Josephus problem with a binary twist

    hostcontroller, 2022-08 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: What's your favorite math/logic puzzle?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: josephus problem, binary, recursion, puzzles, numberphile

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