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The Cutting Sticks Problem

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Visit this site: http://home.wxs.nl/~faase009/cutsticks.html
Author:Frans Faase
Description: A classic math puzzle: You are given k sticks with integer length of which the total length of sums up to n(n+1)/2. None of the sticks is shorter than n. Can you always cut them into sticks with length 1, 2, up to n, no matter the number of the sticks and their lengths? Discussion of approaches, solutions, and programs from personal mail and newsgroups. Includes contributions from Dave Rusin, Chris Hall, Dan Hoey, Mike Williams, Hugo Van der Sanden, Ian Hawthorn, Dave Ring, K.J.Saeger, Timothy Chow, Hauke Reddmann, and Ajit Diwan.
Levels: High School (9-12), College
Languages: English
Resource Types: Problems/Puzzles, Articles, Topic Tools Miscellaneous
Math Topics: Operations Research, Computer Science

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