Super Egg Drop

You are given K eggs, and you have access to a building with N floors from 1 to N. 

Each egg is identical in function, and if an egg breaks, you cannot drop it again.

You know that there exists a floor F with 0 <= F <= N such that any egg dropped at a floor higher than F will break, and any egg dropped at or below floor F will not break.

Each move, you may take an egg (if you have an unbroken one) and drop it from any floor X (with 1 <= X <= N). 

Your goal is to know with certainty what the value of F is.

What is the minimum number of moves that you need to know with certainty what F is, regardless of the initial value of F?

 


Example 1:

Input: K = 1, N = 2
Output: 2
Explanation: 
Drop the egg from floor 1.  If it breaks, we know with certainty that F = 0.
Otherwise, drop the egg from floor 2.  If it breaks, we know with certainty that F = 1.
If it didn't break, then we know with certainty F = 2.
Hence, we needed 2 moves in the worst case to know what F is with certainty.

Example 2:

Input: K = 2, N = 6
Output: 3

Example 3:

Input: K = 3, N = 14
Output: 4

 

Note:

  1. 1 <= K <= 100
  2. 1 <= N <= 10000

Solution:

class Solution {
    Integer[][] dp;
    
    public int superEggDrop(int K, int N) {
        dp = new Integer[K + 1][N + 1];
        return helper(K, N);
    }
    
    private int helper(int k, int n) {
        if (k == 1) return n;
        if (n == 0) return 0;
        if (dp[k][n] != null) return dp[k][n];
        int res = n;
        // for (int i = 1; i <= n; i ++) {
        //     res = Math.min(Math.max(helper(k - 1, i - 1), helper(k, n - i)) + 1, res);
        // }
        int left = 1, right = n;
        while (left <= right) {
            int mid = (left + right) / 2;
            int broken = helper(k - 1, mid - 1);
            int notBroken = helper(k, n - mid);
            if (broken < notBroken) {
                res = Math.min(res, notBroken + 1);
                left = mid + 1;
            } else {
                res = Math.min(res, broken + 1);
                right = mid - 1;
            }
        }
        return dp[k][n] = res;
    }
}