THE VIDEO SHELF · josephus problem
The Josephus Problem - Numberphile
Numberphile with Daniel Erman on the Josephus problem, where people in a circle are eliminated in turn. It shows how the survivor's position follows a neat pattern tied to powers of two and binary.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN cites it as an excellent example of solving small cases to find a pattern, and as a favorite puzzle with an elegant binary solution.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Numberphile
- Topic
- josephus problem
- Format
- explainer
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 4
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2018–2022
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Taking a break from sitting at the desk and going for a walk and thinking about the problem has worked surprisingly well for me many times. It was something I first read about in a Poincare's article on how Mathematical ideas are generated. Coming to …
yantrams on Hacker News · 2018-06
In Dealing with Hard Problems (2015)I really like the Josephus Problem ([Numberphile‘s Video on YT]( [VIDEO] )) because of the binary twist, really enjoyed Veritasium‘s [3x+1]( [LINK] ) and my favorite is your described [100 Prisoners Riddle]( [LINK] ) too
hostcontroller on Hacker News · 2022-08
In Ask HN: What's your favorite math/logic puzzle?
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.