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Josephus Theorem

The Josephus Theorem describes a scenario where individuals in a circle eliminate each other in a systematic manner, ultimately leading to one survivor. To determine the safest position, one must identify the closest power of two less than the total number of participants and calculate the winning position using the formula for odd numbers. In a circle of 41 people, the optimal position for survival is the 19th position.

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35 views3 pages

Josephus Theorem

The Josephus Theorem describes a scenario where individuals in a circle eliminate each other in a systematic manner, ultimately leading to one survivor. To determine the safest position, one must identify the closest power of two less than the total number of participants and calculate the winning position using the formula for odd numbers. In a circle of 41 people, the optimal position for survival is the 19th position.

Uploaded by

barafag675
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Josephus Theorem

Imagine you are standing in a circle with 40 other people, all of you taking turns
to kill the person next to you. The rules of this game are simple: Starting from the
1st person, each person kills the person next to them, moving in a clock-wise
direction, the last person eventually killing themselves. Imagine you are a part of
this game, but you want to escape alive, so which position should you choose to
save yourself? This is what a Jewish soldier, Josephus faced while he, along with
40 fellow soldiers, was surrounded by the Roman Army.

Let’s start with eliminating the obviously wrong choices. In a circle with any given
number of people, people occupying the even positions will be eradicated in the
very first round. It means, our answer is definitely an odd-number!

If we look at winning positions for up to 10 number of people, we observe the


following pattern:

Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
of
people
(p)
Winning 1 1 3 1 3 5 7 1 3 5
position
(x)

Notice that we are getting sequences of odd numbers, until at some point, the
sequence stops and starts all over again. To understand this abrupt change, let’s
note the values of ‘p’ for which the sequence repeats itself.
Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
of
people
(p)
Winning 1 1 3 1 3 5 7 1 3 5
position
(x)

We can see that all the values ‘p’ for which the value of ‘x’ becomes 1, belong to
the geometric sequence 2n: 1,2,4,8,… where n is a whole number.

After any given starting point (2n), as the number of people keeps increasing in
the circle, the winning position ‘x’ keeps shifting to the next odd number in the
sequence 1,3,5,7…, until the cycle ends when the value of ‘p’ equals the next term
in the geometric sequence (2n+1)

It means for any given number ‘p’, the winning position ‘x’ belongs to the
arithmetic sequence 2r+1, which is the formula for odd numbers. To find the
value of r, we need to know how far our given value ‘p’ is from the starting point
2n. Our aim is to find the closest number from the geometric sequence 2n:
1,2,4,8,… which precedes our given number ‘p’ and calculate the distance
between them r = p – 2n. This difference will give us our desired odd number 2r+1,
which is also our winning position!

With this rule, Josephus can finally decide the position that will save him. Since he
is standing in a circle of 41 people, he first needs to determine the number from
the geometric sequence 2n: 1,2,4,8… which is closest to 41 and precedes it. This
number turns out to be 32. The difference between 41 and 32 is r = 41 – 32 = 9,
which means Josephus should choose the 9th odd number from the arithmetic
sequence 2r+1, which equals 19.

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