Minor problem types guide 5

[nruthya.rajagopal]

i am not able to understand optimization, the very first one .Any suggestions pls!! Any material to refer to understanf this .


Please reply asap.
Thanks
Nruthya

[tommywallach]

Hey Nruthya,

Optimization is a very minor problem type (hence the name of the chapter!), so I really wouldn't let it bother you. That being said, can you try to get a little further into it? Obviously there's an explanation given in the question, so can you try to tell me exactly when the explanation stops making sense? If so, I might be able to better help you out.

Thanks!

-t

[nruthya.rajagopal]

hi tommy,

The guest at the football banquet consumed a total of 401 pounds of food.If no individual guest consumed more than 2.5 pounds of food,what is the minimum number of guests that could have attended the banquet?

pounds of food per guest * no of guests=total pounds of food.
pounds of food per guest =atmost 2.5
no of guests=?
total pounds of food= exactly 401.


no of guest = 401/2.5 =160.4

the no of guest must be an integer so 160.4 should be round off.
to determine whether to round up or down is what i am not understanding?

I know that rounding it to 161 * 2.5 is 402.5 which is greater than 401.then why round up?

rounding down 160*2.5 = 400 is well within 401pounds why is this not correct?

[tommywallach]

Hey Nruthya,

The issue is that they HAVE to eat 401 pounds. You can't round down to 400 because that wouldn't be enough food. In other words, the number of people it would take to eat 400 pounds (160) cannot be the number of people at the ball, because who ate the last pound? So there needs to be one more person, to eat the final pound.

Does that make more sense?

-t

[nruthya.rajagopal]

yeah that make sense, clear my doubt.

Thanks tommy.

[tommywallach]

No problem!

-t