how do i solve this problem?
Not an official ACM page
[ Problem B | 1999 ACM Finals problem set | My ACM problem archive | my home page] The 23rd Annual
ACM International Collegiate
Programming Contest
WORLD FINALS
sponsored by http://www.karrels.org/Ed/ACM/99/bigblue.gif
Problem A
Bee Breeding
Professor B. Heif is conducting experiments with a species of South American bees that he found during an expedition to the Brazilian rain forest. The honey produced by these bees is of superior quality compared to the honey from European and North American honey bees. Unfortunately, the bees do not breed well in captivity. Professor Heif thinks the reason is that the placement of the different maggots (for workers, queens, etc.) within the honeycomb depends on environmental conditions, which are different in his laboratory and the rain forest. As a first step to validate his theory, Professor Heif wants to quantify the difference in maggot placement. For this he measures the distance between the cells of the comb into which the maggots are placed. To this end, the professor has labeled the cells by marking an arbitrary cell as number 1, and then labeling the remaining cells in a clockwise fashion, as shown in the following figure.
Code:
__ __ __ __
__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__
__/ \__/ \__/53\__/ \__/ \__
/ \__/ \__/52\__/54\__/ \__/ \
\__/ \__/51\__/31\__/55\__/ \__/
/ \__/50\__/30\__/32\__/56\__/ \
\__/49\__/29\__/15\__/33\__/57\__/
/ \__/28\__/14\__/16\__/34\__/ \
\__/48\__/13\__/ 5\__/17\__/58\__/
/..\__/27\__/ 4\__/ 6\__/35\__/ \
\__/47\__/12\__/ 1\__/18\__/59\__/
/..\__/26\__/ 3\__/ 7\__/36\__/ \
\__/46\__/11\__/ 2\__/19\__/60\__/
/..\__/25\__/10\__/ 8\__/37\__/ \
\__/45\__/24\__/ 9\__/20\__/61\__/
/..\__/44\__/23\__/21\__/38\__/ \
\__/70\__/43\__/22\__/39\__/62\__/
/ \__/69\__/42\__/40\__/63\__/ \
\__/ \__/68\__/41\__/64\__/ \__/
/ \__/ \__/67\__/65\__/ \__/ \
\__/ \__/ \__/66\__/ \__/ \__/
\__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/
\__/ \__/ \__/ \__/
For example, two maggots in cells 19 and 30 are 5 cells apart. One of the shortest paths connecting the two cells is via the cells 19 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 15 - 30, so you must move five times to adjacent cells to get from 19 to 30. Professor Heif needs your help to write a program that computes the distance, defined as the number of cells in a shortest path, between any pair of cells.
Input
The input consists of several lines, each containing two integers a and b (a,b <= 10000), denoting numbers of cells. The integers are always positive, except in the last line where a=b=0 holds. This last line terminates the input and should not be processed. Output
For each pair of numbers (a,b) in the input file, output the distance between the cells labeled a and b. The distance is the minimum number of moves to get from a to b. Sample Input
19 30
0 0
Output for the Sample Input
The distance between cells 19 and 30 is 5.
This page maintained by Ed Karrels.
Last updated December 7, 1999
i was just looking for some programing problems, when i got this site, which contains several archived programing contest problems.
this problem is from 1999. i just have no idea what needs to be known to solve this problem. although i suspect that it has to
with graph or network theory. but i am not a CS major. can someone help me?
EDIT:
Oops! I copy-pasted the page here, and it is distorting the thread layout, you can see the page here: http://www.karrels.org/Ed/ACM/99/prob_a.html
EDIT2: Fixed! Thanks Todd! :)
EDIT3: Duh! Now the hive gets distorted! Adding code tags again! :(
EDIT4: Finally! :)