You have 2 identical glass bulbs with you. Bulb
manufacturer has mentioned that each bulb might withstand a
drop of 200 Feet at maximum. Your task is to find the
height at which the bulb breaks ofcourse with minimum
number of iterations.
Assume that you have 200 blocks of 1 foot each which can be
stacked one by one to create a 200 Feet structure to carry
out the test.
- 10 Answers
- 12432 Views
- Wipro, I also Faced
- E-Mail Answers
Answers were Sorted based on User's Feedback
Answer / chris uzdavinis
Taking the worst case scenario, the minimum number of
iterations required is 20. Here is why:
For N drops you can cover a range of the sum(1,..N), which
is n*(n+1) / 2.
If we have 200 potential heights to test, we solve n*(n+1) =
400, and using the quadratic equation gives us
19.5062490237426, rounding up to 20.
The sequence of tests would be drop at heights of:
20
39
57
74
90
105
119
132
144
155
165
174
182
189
195
200
(Notice, the distance between each level decreases by 1 to
account for the extra drop it took to get there.)
If the bulb does not break on a level, try the next higher
number in the above sequence. If it does break, then do a
linear search starting at the previous "level", plus 1.
Any answer that partitions segments into equal lengths will
be suboptimal.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 3 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / ram kumar.y
make the stack into 14 sections such that 10 of them will
have 14 blocks each and rest of the 4 will have 15 blocks
each.i.e., 14*10+15*4=140+60=200 blocks.
coming from the bottom keep dropping the bulb from the
highest blocks in each sections. in the worst case scenario,
the bulb may break in last(14th) section.
with the second bulb, keep dropping the bulb from any one
end of that section(in this case 14th as its the worst case)
which has 15 blocks and the first bulb has been dropped from
one of the 15 blocks. so, it takes 14 more chances(at a
worst case) to find out the block from where the bulb breaks
when dropped. So, the total no. of iterations are 14+14=28(max).
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 1 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / shantanu_sanjeev
For the best solution the worst case max drops will be "24"
For this we divide it into
1st five blocks from bottom of size 20 : 5*20 = 100
Next ten blocks of top of size 10 : 10*10 = 100
This will have a worst case at 99 when there will be 24
drops and all other numbers above 99 will have less than 24
drops.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 1 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / magnum
in the question it is asked "THE HEIGHT AT WHICH BULB BREAKS"
not the height from which u drop so the bulb breaks.so from whatever height u may drop, the bulb if it breaks,it will break only on the ground i.e. 0 feet.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 1 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / md
200 feet is the max height.
Means bulb can break from any feet within the max limit.
In the worst case, no of iteration will be 200.
To make situation better.. lets segmentise the 200 feet in
X segments.
Then will experiment with one bulb from top of each
segments. Bulb may break at any trial. worst case bulb
breaks at last trial. iteration = X
Now need to find the exact feet among the particular
segment. This segment has 200/X feet span.
Hence Worst case : iteration I = X + (200/X)
Now the job is to find out value of X so that I is minimum.
X=10 or X=20 in worst case min no of iteration is 30
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 0 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / chris uzdavinis
Minor typo in previous answer (#7): it should say ... we
solve n*(n+1) = 200
To help get the mindset of the answer, think of the question
differently at first. Rather than solve for the fewest
number of drops to cover a range, think about a twisted
version of that question: "given a fixed number of drops,
what range can be completely covered?"
Our constraints are we have two bulbs, and we're done once
the 2nd breaks, but if it doesn't break we can use it again.
Given only 1 drop, we can only cover a range of 1. Either
it breaks or it doesn't. (If we go higher than the first
level, we don't know if it would have broken at a lower level.)
Given 2 drops, we can cover a range of 3: first drop on 2,
if it breaks, try 1, if not, try 3.
Given 3 drops, we cover a range 1..6: First drop on 3, if
it breaks, try 1, then 2. If it doesn't break, drop #2 is
on 5. If breaks, try 4. If not, try 6.
Given 4 drops, we cover a range of 1..10:
Start on 4, if breaks, try 1,2,3. If not, try 7. If
breaks, try 5,6. If not, try 9. If breaks, try 8. If not
try 10.
And so on. Thus, for N drops, we start on level N. If it
breaks, start a linear search using the remaining bulb, from
1..N-1. Thus, it took a max of 20 drops. But if it doesn't
break, we try level N+(N-1). If it breaks, start a linear
search from N+1. Otherwise try N+(N-1)+(N-2). etc.
This series is clearly the sum from 1 to N drops.
So now that we know how big of a range we can cover given a
fixed number of drops. But the original question asks us to
cover a range of 200, and find the number of drops required.
We just find the smallest integral value for N such that
sum of 1..N >= 200, which is 20.
I gave the sequence of tests in the previous post.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 0 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / vineeta agarwal
Max height = 200 feet
no of bulbs we have=2
in minimum iteration we need to find the height at which bulb will break...
i think we can find only range... not exact height...
first will divide 200/2=100 feet
we drop bulb from 100 feet if 1st bulb break than we have to find height from 0 to 100 feet.... than we drop 2nd bulb from 50 feet if break than our range is 0-50 else we do same thing from 75 feet..... just like that we do and will find the range....
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 0 Yes | 0 No |
Answer / viral avalani
No. of iterations will be minimum at height of 200 ft.
| Is This Answer Correct ? | 0 Yes | 1 No |
A boy asked a girl her name she replied your name is behind your scooty Behind the scooty is written 7.3 3.3 9.3 2.3 What is her name
79 Answers ABC, Biotech, HCL, HP, Infosys, MCB Bank, Satyam, Shiva Corporation, Siemens, Wipro,
*suppose u have 2 distribute a sum rs 50 among 30 studnt .it is also decided that a male student will get double than of female student.find the no. of male n female student of class?
If you were to dial any 7 digits on a telephone in random order, what is the probability that you will dial your own phone number? Assume that your telephone number is 7-digits.
4_4_4_4 = 20, what sign should be in _ (dash)fileds((+,-,/,*))
A man was looking at a portrait. Someone asked him, "Whose picture are you looking at?" He replied, pointing at the portrait: "Brothers and sisters have I none, but this man's son is my father's son." Now whose picture is the man looking at?
You have only one container full of water. You didnt have any marker or measurement device. Find the half of the container.
one man driving a car in a lonely forest .. it was raining at that moment ...suddenly one of the car tyre got punchured...and he is having stephiny in his car ...he gets it and he tried to fix that stephiny...when he removes the bolts of punchred tire all are gone into mud...all bolts... fell into mud...and that bolts he never get...then, how can he reach safely to home... by driving his car..?
When Alexander the Great attacked the forces of Porus, an Indian soldier was captured by the Greeks. He had displayed such bravery in battle, however, that the enemy offered to let him choose how he wanted to be killed. They told him, "If you tell a lie, you will put to the sword, and if you tell the truth you will be hanged." The soldier could make only one statement. He made that statement and went free. What did he say?
A blindfolded man is asked to sit in the front of a carrom board. The holes of the board are shut with lids in random order, i.e. any number of all the four holes can be shut or open. Now the man is supposed to touch any two holes at a time and can do the following. ? Open the closed hole. ? Close the open hole. ? Let the hole be as it is. After he has done it, the carrom board is rotated and again brought to some position. The man is again not aware of what are the holes which are open or closed. How many minimum number of turns does the blindfolded man require to either open all the holes or close all the holes? Note that whenever all the holes are either open or close, there will be an alarm so that the blindfolded man will know that he has won.
there are 5 boxes each of which contains coins. all the boxes except one box contains coins whose weight is 100 grams.(each coin weight is 100gm). only one box contains coins tat weigh 90gm each. u r given a digital balance. in how many trys can u find out which box contains 90gm coins?
Nine plates of similar in design... same colour, same size but one plate among that has very small difference in weight. you should find it but the condition is u can use weighing pan only two times. at the second time u should be able to find the defeated plate..............
A_basket_has_six_eggs_in_it_Six_people_come_along_and_each_tak es_an_egg_but_there_is_still_one_egg_left_in_the_basket?how?
English 
