Paper by Erik D. Demaine

Reference:

Stelian Ciurea, Erik D. Demaine, Corina E. Pǎtraşcu, and Mihai Pǎtraşcu, “Finding a Divisible Pair”, ACM SIGSAM Bulletin, volume 38, number 3, September 2004, pages 98–100.

Abstract:

Our problem is the natural algorithmic version of a classic mathematical result: any (n + 1)-subset of {1, …, 2n} contains a pair of divisible numbers. How do we actually find such a pair? If the subset is accessible only through a membership oracle, we show a lower bound of (4/3) n − O(1) and an almost matching upper bound of (4/3 + 1/24) n + O(1) on the number of queries necessary in the worst case.

Length:

The paper is 2 pages.

Availability:

The paper is available in PostScript (105k), gzipped PostScript (43k), and PDF (60k).

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