On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Baba <raoul...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Mel, > > indeed i thought of generalising the theorem as follows: > If it is possible to buy n, n+1,…, n+(x-1) sets of McNuggets, for some > x, then it is possible to buy any number of McNuggets >= x, given that > McNuggets come in x, y and z packs. > > so with diophantine_nuggets(7,10,21) i would need 7 passes > result:53 > > but with (10,20,30) and 10 passes i get no result
You're on the right track. In the case of (10,20,30) there is no largest exactly purchasable quantity. Any quantity that does not end with a 0 will not be exactly purchasable. I suspect that there exists a largest unpurchasable quantity iff at least two of the pack quantities are relatively prime, but I have made no attempt to prove this. Cheers, Ian -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
