Flipping Coins

Sometimes people post their homework problems on stackoverflow.com I don’t answer homework problems, but I do like to try to figure them out.

Problem description: Take a stack of coins all heads up. Upturn the topmost coin, place back on the stack and then proceed: take the top 2 coins and upturn as a single stack (tail, head becomes when upturned and placed back on the stack tail, head (the two coins are flipped as if glued together)). Now in the same way flip the top 3 coins and place back on the stack (you get: tail, tail, head (and if there were 4 coins that would be tail, tail, tail, head). When you upturn the whole stack begin again with the first coin. Continue until you return to a stack with all heads up.

Here’s what I came up with:

Sub FlipCoin()

‘Stack a number of coins all heads up
‘flip the first coin and put on the stack
‘flip the first and second coin as a unit and put on the stack
‘flip the fist n coins as a unit and put on the stack
‘repeat flipping the first coin
‘stop when all coins are heads up

Dim i As Long, j As Long
Dim aCoins() As String
Dim lCount As Long
Dim dMidPoint As Double
Dim sTemp As String
Dim bAllHeads As Boolean

Const lCOINS As Long = 6

ReDim aCoins(1 To lCOINS)

‘set all coins to heads
For i = 1 To lCOINS
aCoins(i) = “H”
Next i

lCount = 0
Debug.Print lCount, Join(aCoins, “,”)

Do
For i = 1 To lCOINS
‘flip the first j coins
For j = 1 To i
If aCoins(j) = “H” Then
aCoins(j) = “T”
Else
aCoins(j) = “H”
End If
Next j

‘swap coins around the midpoint
dMidPoint = i / 2
For j = 1 To Int(dMidPoint)
sTemp = aCoins(j)
aCoins(j) = aCoins(i – (j – 1))
aCoins(i – (j – 1)) = sTemp
Next j

lCount = lCount + 1
Debug.Print lCount, Join(aCoins, “,”)

‘check for tails
bAllHeads = InStr(1, Join(aCoins, “,”), “T”) = 0
If bAllHeads Then Exit Do
Next i
Loop Until bAllHeads

End Sub

I only tested it to six coins. I thought the graph would be prettier.

5 thoughts on “Flipping Coins”

Dick
It looks like the upper and lower points of your chart are definitely fitting some sort of series

I’ve been bashed over the head with the following advice by professors in the past, and I think it bears repeating here:

“Always label your axes!”

I think that the horizontal axis represents the number of coins in a stack and the vertical axis represents the number of flips required to return all coins to the original orientation…correct?