There are N men in a queue. A cannibal eats either all odd-numbered or all even-numbered men in the queue at a time. In the first round he eats all the odd-numbered. In the next round he eats all even-numbered. This goes on repeating (with odd or even toggling after every round) till there is only 1 man in the queue. What would be the original number of this man in the queue? e.g. If N = 6,
Men remaining after round 1: 2, 4, 6
Men remaining after round 2: 2, 6
Men remaining after round 3: 6
Hence answer = 6
1524 Solvers
926 Solvers
Project Euler: Problem 8, Find largest product in a large string of numbers
176 Solvers
Back to basics 9 - Indexed References
338 Solvers
96 Solvers
Solution 1684038
OK. I'll bite. Where did this formula come from?
Just from calculating a number of values and figuring out the pattern.
That's quite the pattern to figure out...