[Haskell-cafe] Re: Health effects

Ryan Ingram ryani.spam at gmail.com
Thu Oct 2 12:49:07 EDT 2008


It seems like if your primitive operation is "break bar in two" you
need exactly n-1 breaks to get n squares, no matter what choice you
make for where to break along the chocolate grid.  This is a simple
consequence of the fact that each break increases the number of pieces
by one.

If you're allowed to hold multiple pieces in your hand when you do the
break it's different.  Then you need a model of how the hands hold the
chocolate.  I think there is a problem when the breaks get
complicated, as if you have to hold the pieces for too long while
setting up the break, some of the chocolate will melt onto your
fingers.

  -- ryan

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 12:56 AM, apfelmus <apfelmus at quantentunnel.de> wrote:
> Andrew Coppin wrote:
>> The other day, I sat down to eat a 2 Kg block of chocolate - one of
>> those ones that's divided into lots of little squares. I proceeded to
>> recursively subdivide it into smaller and smaller blocks, and then eat
>> the individual squares in depth-first order. It was only after getting
>> through 16 of the things that I stopped to notice that the whole bar
>> just happens to have an exact power of two squares on it.
>>
>> And it was some time after *that* when I thought to myself "...woah,
>> maybe do too much Haskell?" o_O
>>
>> Seriously, who recursively subdivides their food? I think I have
>> something wrong with me...
>
> A much more important question is: how many "break bar in two"
> operations did you perform? Can you do it with less?
>
>
> Regards,
> apfelmus
>
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