Toilet Paper Mysteries

Question

Today you need to solve a very practical problem: How many loops do you need to have a certain number of sheets on your toilet paper roll? Let's look at some facts:

• The diameter of a bare toilet paper cylinder is 3.8cm
• The length of one sheet of toilet paper is 10cm.
• The thickness of one sheet of toilet paper is 1mm.

Before you wrap around the cylinder the first time, it has a circumference in cm of 3.8*pi. Every time you wrap a sheet around the cylinder its radius increases by .1, therefore its circumference increases by .2*PI. Use this information to find out how many loops it takes to fit n sheets of toilet paper. (Note: Use an approximation of Pi that is at least as accurate as 3.14159).

Test Cases:

n=1:

• 10/(3.8*pi) = .838 loops

n=2:

• (How many full loops can we make?) 1 full loop = 3.8*pi = 11.938.
• (How much do we have left after the 1st loop?) 20 - 11.938 = 8.062
• (How much of a 2nd loop does the remaining piece make?) 8.062/(4*pi) = .642 loops
• Answer: 1.642 loops

n=3:

• 1st full loop = 3.8*pi = 11.938, 2nd full loop = 4*pi = 12.566
• 30 - 11.938 - 12.566 = 5.496
• 5.496/(4.2*pi) = .417
• Answer: 2.417 loops

n=100 => 40.874

Answer 1

Pyth, 27 23 bytes

+fg0=-QJc*.n0+18T50)cQJ

Try it online. Test suite.

Explanation

                            Q = input number (implicit)
 f                 )        increment T from 1, for each T:
             +18T             add 18 to T, get radius
         *.n0                 multiply by pi to, get half the circumference
        c        50           divide by 50, get circumference in sheets
       J                      save it to J
    =-Q                       decrement Q by it
  g0                          use this T if Q is now <= 0
+                           add
                     Q        Q (now <= 0)
                    c J       divided by J (the last circumference)
                            and print (implicit)

Answer 2

Haskell, 59 46 44 bytes

A scale factor of 5/pi is applied, so that a paper cylinder has a circumference of 19,20,21... cm and a sheet is 50/pi cm.

Saved 2 bytes thanks to xnor, by using an unnamed function.

x!s|s>x=1+(x+1)!(s-x)|1>0=s/x
(19!).(50/pi*)

Answer 3

Jelly, 29 27 26 bytes

R+18×3.6°µ0;+\³_÷µḞi0©ị+®’

Try it online!

Answer 4

Haskell, 97 bytes

p&((m,x):(n,y):z)|y<p=p&((n,y):z)|1>0=m+(p-x)/(y-x)
t=(&zip[0..](scanl(+)0$map(*pi)[0.38,0.4..]))

Might be able to golf it further by moving the filtering from the & operator into a takeWhile statement, but given that it's not a golfing language this seems relatively competitive.

Explanation

The stream of lengths of toilet paper that comprise full loops are first calculated as scanl (+) 0 (map (* pi) [0.38, 0.4 ..]]. We zip these with the number of full revolutions, which will also pick up the type Double implicitly. We pass this to & with the current number that we want to calculate, call it p.

& processes the list of (Double, Double) pairs on its right by (a) skipping forward until snd . head . tail is greater than p, at which point snd . head is less than p.

To get the proportion of this row that is filled, it then computes (p - x)/(y - x), and adds it to the overall amount of loops that have been made so far.

Answer 5

C++, 72 bytes

float f(float k,int d=19){auto c=d/15.9155;return k<c?k/c:1+f(k-c,d+1);}

I used C++ here because it supports default function arguments, needed here to initialize the radius.

Recursion seems to produce shorter code than using a for-loop. Also, auto instead of float - 1 byte less!

Answer 6

Lua, 82 bytes

n=... l,c,p=10*n,11.938042,0 while l>c do l,c,p=l-c,c+.628318,p+1 end print(p+l/c)

Not bad for a general-purpose language, but not very competitive against dedicated golfing languages of course. The constants are premultiplied with pi, to the stated precision.

Answer 7

JavaScript, 77 bytes

function w(s,d,c){d=d||3.8;c=d*3.14159;return c>s*10?s*10/c:1+w(s-c/10,d+.2)}

function w(s,d,c){d=d||3.8;c=d*3.14159;return c>s*10?s*10/c:1+w(s-c/10,d+.2)}

function wraps(sheets, diameter, circumference) {
    // Default the value of diameter
    diameter = diameter || 3.8;
    circumference = diameter * 3.14159;
    if (circumference > sheets * 10)
        return sheets * 10 / circumference;
    return 1 + wraps(sheets - circumference / 10, diameter + .2);
}

document.getElementById('text').innerHTML = "0 => " + w(0)
+ "\n1 => " + w(1)
+ "\n2 => " + w(2)
+ "\n3 => " + w(3)
+ "\n100 => " + w(100)

+ "\n\n0 => " + wraps(0)
+ "\n1 => " + wraps(1)
+ "\n2 => " + wraps(2)
+ "\n3 => " + wraps(3)
+ "\n100 => " + wraps(100);

<pre id="text"></pre>

Answer 8

C, 87 bytes

float d(k){float f=31.831*k,n=round(sqrt(f+342.25)-19);return n+(f-n*(37+n))/(38+2*n);}

Uses an explicit formula for the number of whole loops:

floor(sqrt(100 * k / pi + (37/2)^2) - 37/2)

I replaced 100 / pi by 31.831, and replaced floor with round, turning the annoying number -18.5 to a clean -19.

The length of these loops is

pi * n * (3.7 + 0.1 * n)

After subtracting this length from the whole length, the code divides the remainder by the proper circumference.

---

Just to make it clear - this solution has complexity O(1), unlike many (all?) other solutions. So it's a bit longer than a loop or recursion.

Answer 9

C#, 113 bytes

double s(int n){double c=0,s=0,t=3.8*3.14159;while(n*10>s+t){s+=t;c++;t=(3.8+c*.2)*3.14159;}return c+(n*10-s)/t;}

Ungolfed:

double MysteryToiletPaper(int sheetNumber) 
    { 
        double fullLoops = 0, sum = 0, nextLoop = 3.8 * 3.14159; 
        
        while (sheetNumber * 10 > sum + nextLoop) 
        { 
            sum += nextLoop; 
            fullLoops++; 
            nextLoop = (3.8 + fullLoops * .2) * 3.14159; 
        } 
        
        return fullLoops + ((sheetNumber * 10 - sum) / nextLoop); 
    }

Results:

for 1 sheet

0,837658302760201

for 2 sheets

1,64155077524438

for 3 sheets

2,41650110749198

for 100 sheets

40,8737419532946

Answer 10

PHP, 101 bytes

<?$p=pi();$r=3.8;$l=$argv[1]*10;$t=0;while($r*$p<$l){$t+=($l-=$r*$p)>0?1:0;$r+=.2;}echo$t+$l/($r*$p);

Ungolfed

<?
$pi = pi();
$radius = 3.8;
$length_left = $argv[1]*10;
$total_rounds = 0;
while ($radius * $pi < $length_left) {
    $total_rounds += ($length_left -= $radius * $pi) > 0 ? 1 : 0;
    $radius += .2;
}
echo $total_rounds + $length_left/( $radius * $pi );

I feel like this could be done a little shorter, but I ran out of ideas.

Answer 11

Python 3, 114 109 99 bytes

This function tracks the circumference of each layer until the sum of the circumferences is greater than the length of the number of sheets. Once this happens the answer is:

• One less than the number of calculated layers + length of leftover sheets / circumference of most recent layer

---

def f(n):
    l,s=0,[]
    while sum(s)<n:s+=[.062832*(l+19)];l+=1
    return len(s)-1+(n-sum(s[:-1]))/s[-1]

Update

• -10 [16-05-09] Optimized my math-ing
• -5 [16-05-04] Minimized number of lines

Answer 12

JavaScript, 44 bytes

w=(i,d=19,c=d/15.9155)=>i<c?i/c:1+w(i-c,d+1)

I used anatolyg's idea and translated the code into JavaScript.

Answer 13

><>, 46 44 bytes

a*0"Gq",:&a9+*\
?\:{$-{1+{&:&+>:{:})
;>{$,+n

Expects the number of sheets to be present on the stack at program start.

This uses an approximation of pi of 355/113 = 3.14159292..., storing pi/5 in the register. The current iteration's circumference lives on the stack, and pi/5 is added on each iteration.

Edit: Refactored to store the circumference directly - previous version stored pi/10 and started the diameter as 38, which was 2 bytes longer.

Answer 14

PHP, 79 bytes

function p($s,$d=3.8){$c=$d*pi();return $c>$s*10?$s*10/$c:1+p($s-$c/10,$d+.2);}

Run code in Sandbox

I have pretty much only translated Ross Bradbury's answer for JavaScript into a PHP function, which is also recursive.