Friday, May 3, 2013

project euler problem 151

Paper sheets of standard sizes: an expected-value problem

I checked my old code today. I was surprised to find that I used monte carlo method to run simulations. I do not know how I get the right answer at that time. But I simulated 1e8 times, still quite far from the correct answer. Shame on me!

I rewrote the code, using an appropriate method to solve it. Actually it is a simple Markov chain problem. The size of the matrix is very small. But to generate the matrix, it takes me quite a while. Then it is solved in 50 ms. There are a few Markov chain problems in PE, this one being the simplest one.

Update: I read the discussion thread, I realized that my matrix solver is a dense one, so it cost a lot of unnecessary computation. I rewrote the code, in a recursive way, solved the problem in 2 ms.

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