cp's OEIS Frontend

This is a front-end for the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, made by Christian Perfect. The idea is to provide OEIS entries in non-ancient HTML, and then to think about how they're presented visually. The source code is on GitHub.

Showing 1-2 of 2 results.

A174498 Topswops (2): number of permutations of cards achieving A000376(n).

Original entry on oeis.org

1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3
Offset: 1

Views

Author

Moritz Franckenstein, Nov 28 2010

Keywords

Comments

This is for the topswops variation ending in sorted/identity permutation.

References

  • D. E. Knuth, TAOCP, Section 7.2.1.2, Problems 107-109.

Crossrefs

Cf. A000376.

Extensions

a(20)=3 by Moritz Franckenstein, Apr 16 2011.

A000375 Topswops (1): start by shuffling n cards labeled 1..n. If top card is m, reverse order of top m cards, then repeat. a(n) is the maximal number of steps before top card is 1.

Original entry on oeis.org

0, 1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 16, 22, 30, 38, 51, 65, 80, 101, 113, 139, 159, 191, 221
Offset: 1

Views

Author

Bill Blewett and Mike Toepke [mtoepke(AT)microsoft.com]

Keywords

Comments

Knuth's algorithm can be extended by considering unsorted large unmovable segments: xxx645, e.g. will never move 6, 4, or 5. - Quan T. Nguyen, William Fahle (waf013000(AT)utdallas.edu), Oct 12 2010
For n=17, there are two longest-winded permutations (or orders of cards) that take 159 steps of "topswopping moves" before the top card is 1. (8 15 17 13 9 4 6 3 2 12 16 14 11 5 10 1 7) terminates at (1 6 2 4 9 3 7 8 5 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17), and (2 10 15 11 7 14 5 16 6 4 17 13 1 3 8 9 12) terminates in sorted order, i.e., (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17). - Quan T. Nguyen, William Fahle (tuongquan.nguyen(AT)utdallas.edu), Oct 21 2010
Lower bounds for the next terms are a(18)>=191, a(19)>=221, a(20)>=249, a(21)>=282, a(22)>=335, a(23)>=382. - Hugo Pfoertner, May 21 2011; updated Oct 08 2016

Examples

			From _R. K. Guy_, Jan 24 2007: (Start)
With 4 cards there are just two permutations which require 4 flips:
3142 --> 4132 --> 2314 --> 3214 --> 1234
2413 --> 4213 --> 3124 --> 2134 --> 1234
In these cases the deck finishes up sorted. But this is not always the case - see A000376. (End)
		

References

  • Martin Gardner, Time Travel and Other Mathematical Bewilderments (Freeman, 1988), Chapter 6 "Combinatorial Card Problems" [based on a column that originally appeared in Scientific American, November 1974].
  • D. E. Knuth, TAOCP, Section 7.2.1.2, Problems 107-109.

Crossrefs

Cf. A000376 (a variation), A123398 (number of solutions).

Programs

  • Mathematica
    Table[Max@ Map[Length@ NestWhileList[Flatten@{Reverse@Take[#, First@ #], Take[#, -(Length@ # - First@ #)]} &, #, First@ # != 1 &] - 1 &, Permutations@ Range@ n], {n, 8}] (* Michael De Vlieger, Oct 08 2016 *)
  • PARI
    a(n)=my(s,t,v);for(i=1,n!,v=numtoperm(n,i);t=0;while(v[1]>1,v=if(v[1]Charles R Greathouse IV, Oct 14 2013
    
  • Python
    from itertools import permutations as P
    def ts(d, var=1): # algorithm VARiation
      s, m = 0, d[0]
      while m != 1:
        d = (d[:m])[::-1] + d[m:]
        s, m = s+1, d[0]
      if var==2: return s*(list(d)==sorted(d))
      return s
    def a(n):
      return max(ts(d) for d in P(range(1, n+1)))
    print([a(n) for n in range(1, 11)]) # Michael S. Branicky, Dec 11 2020

Extensions

One more term from James Kilfiger, Jul 1997
113 from William Rex Marshall, Mar 27 2001
139 from Don Knuth, Aug 25 2001
Added one new term by improved branch and bound using various new insights. - Quan T. Nguyen, William Fahle (waf013000(AT)utdallas.edu), Oct 12 2010
a(18)-a(19) from Kimura et al. added by Andrey Zabolotskiy, Mar 24 2021
Showing 1-2 of 2 results.