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The Card Sorting Machine (Posted on 2004-11-12) Difficulty: 3 of 5
A bridge catalogue has a machine for dealing cards. It can take a randomly arranged deck and divide it into four piles in any way you choose, but the order of the cards in each pile will be in the same order as they were in the deck.

Example: Deck starts as {5H 4C 3S 4S 4H 2D 3D 5S 2S 2C 5D 2H 5C 3C 4D 3H} Sort by suits creates piles: {5H 4H 2H 3H} {4C 2C 5C 3C} {2D 3D 5D 4D} {3S 4S 5S 2S}

Suppose that we run a deck through the machine several times, each time taking the four piles and placing them on top of each other in a fixed order. How many runs does it take to sort a deck into complete rank order, from ace of clubs to king of spades?

  Submitted by Brian Smith    
Rating: 3.0000 (2 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
Three runs. Assign each card a number in base 4 and sort on each digit.
This will work for up to 64 (4 cubed) cards.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
Some ThoughtsPuzzle AnswerK Sengupta2023-12-24 22:14:00
re(2): A less pure conjectureowl2004-11-13 18:24:10
Solutionre: A less pure conjectureFederico Kereki2004-11-13 16:25:58
A less pure conjectureowl2004-11-13 07:38:49
SolutionA solution for CS peopleOld Original Oskar!2004-11-12 09:03:44
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