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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Van Cott, Cornelia A., Zhang, Qiyu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.00078
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author Van Cott, Cornelia A.
Zhang, Qiyu
author_facet Van Cott, Cornelia A.
Zhang, Qiyu
contents The change-making problem asks: given a positive integer $v$ and a collection $C$ of integer coin values $c_1=1<c_2< c_3< \cdots< c_n$, what is the minimum number of coins needed to represent $v$ with coin values from $C$? For some coin systems $C$, the greedy algorithm finds a representation with a minimum number of coins for all $v$. We call such coin systems orderly. However, there are coin systems where the greedy algorithm fails to always produce a minimal representation. Over the past fifty years, progress has been made on the change-making problem, including finding a characterization of all orderly coin systems with 3, 4, and 5 coin values. We characterize orderly coin systems with 6 coin values, and we make generalizations to orderly coin systems with $n$ coin values.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_00078
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The change-making problem for six coin values and beyond
Van Cott, Cornelia A.
Zhang, Qiyu
Combinatorics
05A17
The change-making problem asks: given a positive integer $v$ and a collection $C$ of integer coin values $c_1=1<c_2< c_3< \cdots< c_n$, what is the minimum number of coins needed to represent $v$ with coin values from $C$? For some coin systems $C$, the greedy algorithm finds a representation with a minimum number of coins for all $v$. We call such coin systems orderly. However, there are coin systems where the greedy algorithm fails to always produce a minimal representation. Over the past fifty years, progress has been made on the change-making problem, including finding a characterization of all orderly coin systems with 3, 4, and 5 coin values. We characterize orderly coin systems with 6 coin values, and we make generalizations to orderly coin systems with $n$ coin values.
title The change-making problem for six coin values and beyond
topic Combinatorics
05A17
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.00078