- #1
remaan
- 132
- 0
Homework Statement
The 251 Course Sta has built n > 0 super-ultra-ecient hybrid cars, but due to various energy crises,
we can only aord n gallons of fuel. Because of this, we tted each hybrid car with a tank big enough
to hold one gallon of fuel. Each hybrid car uses fuel at the rate of a thousand miles per gallon. Also,
each hybrid car can freely exchange fuel with any hybrid car next to it. We want to see how far from
Pittsburgh we can send a single hybrid car.
Given the experimental nature of the project, the cars are completely expendable{the only criterion that
matters is the furthest distance one of these cars can reach.
(a) [6 Points] Prove a lower bound (as a function of n) for the maximum possible distance given n
cars and n gallons of fuel.
(b) [8 Points] Now prove an upper bound (again as a function of n) for the maximum possible
distance some car can reach.
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
When plugging the numbers, I found that there is a pattern, specially that it is given in the problem that upper & lower bounds must be within a multiplicative factor of 4 of each other.
The pattern was :
2^0 which is 1 = 1000 miles
2^1 which is 2 = 1000 + 1000/2
2^2 which is 4 = 1000 + 1000
2^3 which is 8 = 1000 + 1000 + 1000/2
So, the lower & upper bounds for this case is : n + n/2
* but we divide by 2 whenever the power is odd ( I mean for the last term).
Am I in the right direction ?