Just a quick question about the bitwise operator &.
If know that x & y == z and I know the value of y and z is there a way I can calculate the value of x?
If you are told that x is unique, then no, there is no way of doing it for arbitrary values of y. Otherwise, there are 2n different solutions to that equation, where n is the number of zero bits of y.
As an example, let's consider single bit numbers. If y is one, then the value of x must be the same as z (1&1 = 1; 0&1 = 0). If y is zero, z will also be zero, and x can be either one or zero (0&0 = 0; 1&0 = 0).
On many-bit numbers, every zero bit on y doubles the number of possible values of x, hence 2n
No, simple example
0&0 = 0
1&0 = 0
Related
So I have this equation: x % a = b. Values a and b are already known. I want to find the value of x. So, how do I reverse plain modulus? Everything I've found was in the order (a + x) % m = b.
I need to do this for an encryption algorithm. It has a way of knowing what the number is, I just need to separate out the parts of it and this is the only part I haven't reversed.
Assume x, a, and b are integers, as the other commenters have noted, you cannot find a unique value. In fact, there are an infinite number of x values that will work, namely x = b, x = b + a, x = b + 2 * a, ... or:
x = b + a*k, for any integer k.
Of course, for an actual java int (or long) there are only a finite set of x values.
Is there a way to represent a 3D Vector as a definite number? I mean that two vectors with different values can't ever have the same hash value. I'm sure there already is a question about this but I haven't found it unfortunately. Thanks for your help.
EDIT:
I know this algorithm for 2D vectors which is pretty good (I think): (x + y) * (x + y + 1) / 2 + y
The best approach to get a hash for a vector of floats is to convert it to a string of bytes or characters and calculate a hash on it. An example of this is given using numpy and python in the following answer:
Most efficient property to hash for numpy array.
This will work efficiently for large numbers of vectors, but you cannot guarantee that you will not get collisions due to the simple fact of mapping three floats onto an integer. However there are a number of hashing algorithms available in the python hashlib library to choose from, you might need to experiment. An option in C++ is Boost::Hash.
See the pigeon-hole principle - in the same way you can't fit you can't 100 pigeons into 10 holes, you can't uniquely convert 3 values into 1 value (with all values of the same size). There will have to be duplicates.
Now, if you could have a number with 3x as many bits as the vector values, the problem becomes fairly easy:
// convert x, y and z to the range 0-...
x -= minimum possible value
y -= minimum possible value
z -= minimum possible value
mult = maximum possible value + 1
hash = x * mult * mult + y * mult + z
If you're having trouble understanding the above, just take the example of the range of the values being 0-99. We'd multiple x by 100*100 = 10000 and y by 100, so the hash would be a decimal value with (at most) 6 digits with x, y and z all next to each other, guaranteed to not overlap:
x = 12
y = 34
z = 56
hash = 123456
Now this same idea will hold for any maximum value by just changing the base / radix.
If there isn't any overlap in some base, each unique combination of values of x, y and z will result in a unique hash.
This is by far the simplest approach, although it doesn't produce a particularly good hash, so it depends what you want to use it for - there might be a way to uniquely convert this number to another number which will be a good hash.
Responding to this post a little late, and perhaps this isn't what you're looking for, but I figured I would chime in with another answer.
You could use the function you mentioned, (x + y) * (x + y + 1) / 2 + y , and do it recursively, ex. f( f(x,y) , z).
You can also use other pairing functions as well and use the same method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pairing_function).
For my problem, I wanted a function that would order vectors based on their location. The order itself didn't matter, only that a close value means a similar vector. What I ended up doing was:
double get_pairing(double x, double y, double z) {
double normalizer = 0.0;
if(x < 0) {
normalizer += (3.0 * MAX_COORD_VAL);
}
if (y < 0) {
normalizer += (6.0 * MAX_COORD_VAL);
}
if (z < 0) {
normalizer += (9.0 * MAX_COORD_VAL);
}
double g = x + y + z - normalizer + (21 * MAX_COORD_VAL);
return g;
}
This orders vectors based on whether they have negative coordinate values and whether they have large coordinate values.
This works assuming you have a max coordinate value.
Let's say I have a unit vector a = Vector(0,1,0) and I want to add a random spread of something between x = Vector(-0.2,0,-0.2) and y = Vector(0.2,0,0.2), how would I go about doing that?
If I were to simply generate a random vector between x and y, I'd get a value somewhere in the bounds of a square:
What I'd like instead is a value within the circle made up by x and y:
This seems like a simple problem but I can't figure out the solution right now. Any help would be appreciated.
(I didn't ask this on mathoverflow since this isn't really a 'research level mathematics question')
If I read your question correctly, you want a vector in a random direction that's within a particular length (the radius of your circle).
The formula for a circle is: x2 + y2 = r2
So, if you have a maximum radius, r, that constrains the vector length, perhaps proceed something like this:
Choose a random value for x, that lies between -r and +r
Calculate a limit for randomising y, based on your chosen x, so ylim = sqrt(r2 - x2)
Finally, choose a random value of y between -ylim and +ylim
That way, you get a random direction in x and a random direction in y, but the vector length will remain within 0 to r and so will be constrained within a circle of that radius.
In your example, it seems that r should be sqrt(0.22) which is approximately 0.28284.
UPDATE
As 3D vector has length (or magnitude) sqrt(x2+y2+z2) you could extend the technique to 3D although I would probably favour a different approach (which would also work for 2D).
Choose a random direction by choosing any x, y and z
Calculate the magnitude m = sqrt(x2+y2+z2)
Normalise the direction vector (by dividing each element by its magnitude), so x = x/m, y = y/m, z=z/m
Now choose a random length, L between 0 and r
Scale the direction vector by the random length. So x = x * L, y = y * L, z = z * L
I'm writing a Python script to generate problems for mental arithmetic drills. The addition and multiplication ones were easy, but I'm running into trouble trying to generate unbiased problems for the subtraction ones.
I want to be able to specify a minimum and maximum value that the minuend (first number) will be -- e.g., for two-digit subtraction it should be between 20 and 99. The subtrahend should also have a range option (11-99, say). The answer needs to be positive and preferably also bounded by a minimum of, say, 10 for this situation.
So:
20 < Minuend < 99
11 < Subtrahend < 99
Answer = Minuend - Subtrahend
Answer >= 10
All the numeric values should be used as variables, of course.
I have these conditions met as follows:
ansMin, ansMax = 10, 99
subtrahendMin, minuendMax = 11,99
# the other max and min did not seem to be necessary here,
# and two ranges was the way I had the program set up
answer = randint(ansMin, ansMax)
subtrahend = randint(subtrahendMin, minuendMax - answer)
minuend = answer + subtrahend # rearranged subtraction equation
The problem here is that the minuend values wind up being nearly all over 50 because the answer and subtrahend were generated first and added together, and only the section of them that were both in the bottom 25% of the range will get the result below 50%. (Edit: that's not strictly true -- for instance, bottom 1% plus bottom 49% would work, and percentages are a bad way of describing it anyway, but I think the idea is clear.)
I also considered trying generating the minuend and subtrahend values both entirely randomly, then throwing out the answer if it didn't match the criteria (namely, that the minuend be greater than the subtrahend by a value at least greater than the answerMin and that they both be within the criteria listed above), but I figured that would result in a similar bias.
I don't care about it being perfectly even, but this is too far off. I'd like the minuend values to be fully random across the allowable range, and the subtrahend values random across the range allowed by the minuends (if I'm thinking about it right, this will be biased in favor of lower ones). I don't think I really care about the distribution of the answers (as long as it's not ridiculously biased). Is there a better way to calculate this?
There are several ways of defining what "not biased" means in this case. I assume that what you are looking for is that every possible subtraction problem from the allowed problem space is chosen with equal probability. Quick and dirty approach:
Pick random x in [x_min, x_max]
Pick random y in [y_min, y_max]
If x - y < answer_min, discard both x and y and start over.
Note the bold part. If you discard only y and keep the x, your problems will have an uniform distribution in x, not in the entire problem space. You need to ensure that for every valid x there is at least one valid y - this is not the case for your original choice of ranges, as we'll see later.
Now the long, proper approach. First we need to find out the actual size of the problem space.
The allowed set of subtrahends is determined by the minuend:
x in [21, 99]
y in [11, x-10]
or using symbolic constants:
x in [x_min, x_max]
y in [y_min, x - answer_min]
We can rewrite that as
x in [21, 99]
y = 11 + a
a in [0, x-21]
or again using symbolic constants
x in [x_min, x_max]
y = y_min + a
a in [0, x - (answer_min + y_min)].
From this, we see that valid problems exist only for x >= (answer_min + y_min), and for a given x there are x - (answer_min + y_min) + 1 possible subtrahents.
Now we assume that x_max does not impose any further constraints, e.g. that answer_min + y_min >= 0:
x in [21, 99], number of problems:
(99 - 21 + 1) * (1 + 78+1) / 2
x in [x_min, x_max], number of problems:
(x_max - x_min + 1) * (1 + x_max - (answer_min + y_min) + 1) / 2
The above is obtained using the formula for the sum of an arithmetic sequence. Therefore, you need to pick a random number in the range [1, 4740]. To transform this number into a subtraction problem, we need to define a mapping between the problem space and the integers. An example mapping is as follows:
1 <=> x = 21, y = 11
2 <=> x = 22, y = 12
3 <=> x = 22, y = 11
4 <=> x = 23, y = 13
5 <=> x = 23, y = 12
6 <=> x = 23, y = 11
and so on. Notice that x jumps by 1 when a triangular number is exceeded. To compute x and y from the random number r, find the lowest triangular number t greater than or equal to r, preferably by searching in a precomputed table; write this number as q*(q+1)/2. Then x = x_min + q-1 and y = y_min + t - r.
Complete program:
import random
x_min, x_max = (21, 99)
y_min = 11
answer_min = 10
triangles = [ (q*(q+1)/2, q) for q in range(1, x_max-x_min+2) ]
upper = (x_max-x_min+1) * (1 + x_max - (answer_min + y_min) + 1) / 2
for i in range(0, 20):
r = 1 + random.randrange(0, upper)
(t, q) = next(a for a in triangles if a[0] >= r)
x = x_min + q - 1
y = y_min + t - r
print "%d - %d = ?" % (x, y)
Note that for a majority of problems (around 75%), x will be above 60. This is correct, because for low values of the minuend there are fewer allowed values of the subtrahend.
I can see a couple of issues with your starting values - if you want the answer to always be greater than 10 - then you need to either increase MinuendMin, or decrease SubtrahendMin because 20-11 is less than 10... Also you have defined the answer min and max as 3,9 - which means the answer will never be more than 10...
Apart from that I managed to get a nice even distribution of values by selecting the minuend value first, then selecting the subtrahend value based on it and the answerMin:
ansMin = 10
minuendMin, minuendMax = 20,99
subtrahendMin = 9;
minuend = randint(minuendMin, minuendMax )
subtrahend = randint(subtrahendMin,(minuend-ansMin) )
answer = minuend - subtrahend
You say you've already got addition working properly. Assuming you have similar restrictions for the addends/sum you could rearrange the factors so that:
minuend <= sum
subtrahend <= first addend
answer <= second addend
A similar mapping can be made for multiplication/division, if required.
I have a value, for example 2.8. I want to find 10 numbers which are on an exponential curve, which sum to this value.
That is, I want to end up with 10 numbers which sum to 2.8, and which, when plotted, look like the curve below (exponential decay). These 10 numbers should be equally spaced along the curve - that is, the 'x-step' between the values should be constant.
This value of 2.8 will be entered by the user, and therefore the way I calculate this needs to be some kind of algorithm that I can program (hence asking this on SO not Math.SE).
I have no idea where to start with this at all - any ideas?
You want to have 10 x values equally distributed, i.e. x_k = a + k * b. They shall fulfill sum(exp(-x_k)) = v with v being your target value (the 2.8). This means exp(-a) * sum(exp(-b)^k) = v.
Obviously, there is a solution for each choice of b if v is positive. Set b to an arbitrary value, and calculate a from it.
E.g. for v = 2.8 and b = 0.1, you get a = -log(v / sum(exp(-b)^k)) = -log(2.8/sum(0.90484^k)) = -log(2.8/6.6425) = -log(0.421526) = 0.86387.
So for this example, the x values would be 0.86387, 0.96387, ..., 1.76387 and the y values 0.421526, 0.381412, 0.345116, 0.312274, 0.282557, 0.255668, 0.231338, 0.209324, 0.189404, 0.171380.
Update:
As it has been clarified that the curve can be scaled arbitrarily and the xs are preferred to be 1, 2, 3 ... 9, this is much more simple.
Assuming the curve function is r*exp(-x), the 10 values would be r*exp(-1) ... r*exp(-9). Their sum is r*sum(exp(-x)) = r*0.58190489. So to reach a certain value (2.8) you just have to adjust the r accordingly:
r = 2.8/sum(exp(-x)) = 4.81178294
And you get the 10 values: 1.770156, 0.651204, 0.239565, 0.088131, 0.032422, 0.011927, 0.004388, 0.001614, 0.000594.
If I understand your question correctly then you want to find x which solves the equation
It can be solved as
(just sum numbers as geometric progression)
The equation under RootOf will always have 1 real square different from 1 for 2.8 or any other positive number. You can solve it using some root-finding algorithm (1 is always a root but it does not solve original task). For constant a you can choose any number you like.
After computing the x you can easily calculate 10 numbers as .
I'm going to generalize and assume you want N numbers summing to V.
Since your numbers are equally spaced on an exponential you can write your sum as
a + a*x + a*x^2 + ... + a*x^(N-1) = V
Where the first point has value a, and the second a*x etc.
You can take out a factor of a and get:
a ( 1 + x + x^2 + ... + x^(N-1) ) = V
If we're free to pick x then we can solve for a easily
a = V / ( 1 + x + x^2 + .. x^(N-1) )
= V*(x+1)/(x^N-1)
Substituting that back into
a, a*x, a*x^2, ..., a*x^(N-1)
gives the required sequence