Last one alive 4
1,150,000 people stand in a circle. There is a sword in the hand of the person, he kills the person and passes on the sword to the third,who kills the fourth and gives the sword to the , this goes on until one person is left. At what number was that person standing at the start?
The answer is 202849.
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Great question.. Its easy to say that in each iteration the number of people standing are reduced to half.. So if the total number of people are 2^n then definitely the 1st man will be standing at the end.. But what if its not a perfect 2^n? This is complex.. Assuming x people standing.. X>2^n for some n.. For every extra man (x-2^n) the last standing man will kill the first one.. So the man standing will definitely be ((x-2^n)*2)+1 Hard to visualise this.. I tried to be clear but logic is one thing that cannot be made clear that easily.. Try the formula for different numbers and check.. All the best(y)