A problem by Charlton Teo
Google+, Facebook, Twitter are commonly used social networks. They connect millions of people together. In unrelated news, people are playing a game called "Connect". In this game, people hold on to ends of a string where the other end is held by another person. Everyone must be connected by a string to any other person. Given that if two people play the game, they require one string to connect everyone and for three people, what is the maximum number of people you can connect with less than 1000 strings?
Sorry if some of u don't understand I'll try to simplify it. Basically ensure that each person is connected to every other person in this game. By using less than 1000 strings, what is the maximum number of people you can connect? Do victor's question instead he rephrase and put the correct answer
The answer is 44.
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1 solution
Hi Charlton,
Actually your answer is wrong. The answer should be 4 5 but I accidentally entered it as 4 4 .
Here's why:
When there are 2 people, the number of strings required is 2 ( 2 ) ( 2 − 1 ) = 1 . Similarly, when there are 3 people, the number of strings required is 2 ( 3 ) ( 3 − 1 ) = 3 .
Note that 2 ( 4 5 ) ( 4 4 ) = 9 9 0 and 2 ( 4 6 ) ( 4 5 ) = 1 0 3 5 .
Hence the answer is 4 5 . Please edit your question. Thanks XD
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Lol!
Nvm I'll post another version of this problem XD
Sorry if you people got it wrong cause you don't understand the question but anyway, here's the method and see if you can get the meaning of the question through this answer. 1 person = 0 strings 2 people = 1 string 3 people = 3 strings 4 people = 6 strings Note the pattern is +1+2+3. This pattern will continue, we just need to find out which number is the nearest to 1000 but still smaller than it. Using Gauss' Theorem, we can then trial and error this question thereby getting 44.