A baker's dozen

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A Bakers Dozen

Introduction

I am going to investigate the pattern of numbers created by the task given. I have been told that two types of bun are laid out like so, A being one type of bun and B being the other:

ABAB

I then need to investigate how many times two adjacent buns must be swapped in order to sort the alternate pattern into two separate types of bun, one at each end. This particular arrangement shown above requires one switch:

1. AB↔AB

AABB

I have investigated the number of switches needed for the first 5 in this sequence. Here is a table of my results:

I will now attempt to find a formula solve any value in this sequence.

0    1    3    6    10

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   1    2    3    4

      1    1    1

This pattern means it is a quadratic sequence. I can now use a formula to work a formula for this sequence.

 

2a = 1

  a = 0.5

 3a + b = 1

1.5 + b = 1

         b = -0.5

      a + b + c = 0

0.5 - 0.5 + c = 0

                  c = 0

            ...

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