well i guess you could cut them first, but the problem still remains of lining up up the "cut ponts" so you get the longest pieces out of the lengths of each color you have. my niece just did it that way, but i guess that really doesn't matter if she arranged them in the optimal way, pre-cut...
thanks for the response. i think my brain broke reading the knapsack problem...
so are you saying my pieces of chord length and color relate to wieght and profit in the classic knapsack problem?
would this be a variation where each color is a knapsack? so I'd have multiple knapsacks...
I think this belongs in set theory? I may be wrong though. I always enjoy a good math problem, and my niece made me think of something that I couldn't figure out an easy way to get an answer.
She likes making those plastic bracelets with that plastic chord with the different colors and...