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Eenie, Meenie, Miney Mo

By
Liliana Munoz



Arizona Teacher Institute
Math 910 001 Thesis



In partial fulfillment of the M.A. Degree in Middle School Mathematics Teaching Leadership
Department of Mathematics
University of Arizona
April 2010






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Introduction:
This old problem was introduced by first century historian, Flavius Josephus. During a
war between Romans and Jews, he was among forty-one Jews captured by Romans in a cave.
They preferred suicide to that situation and decided to sit around a circle and begin to kill third of
every three remaining persons from beginning of the circle, until no one is alive (at last, there
were two persons alive who should kill themselves). Josephus that didnt want to suicide
calculated that he and his friend should sit where to remain alive (to be those last two persons).
The problem known as Josephus problem is something similar to the problem of the Eenie,
Meenie, Miney, Mo. The purpose of the game is stay alive by choosing the right spot.

Problem 1:
There are 1,000 people, numbered 1 to 1,000 around a circle. We start from person
number 1 and eliminate (kill) second of every two remaining persons until one person remains.
Given the n, determine the number of that person. For example, if n=10, elimination is done this
way: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 3, 7, 1, 9 and finally 5 wins. Assuming we have n=1,000 and k=2, what is the
number of the remaining person? Can you describe a quick way of determining the winner for
other N with k=2?
If you start with every other one and dump on the second instead of the first, then the
numbers of the survivors for a group of n would be
N(Number
of people)
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
W(Winning 1 3 1 3 5 7 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 1 3

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person)

The eliminations process to find the winning person and the last person to be eliminated
works like this:
Number of
people
Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 4
1 1 1 9 5 5 is winning person
2 2 3 1 9
3 3 5 5
4 4 7
5 5 9
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10

The last number to survive is number 5 and the last person to be eliminated is 9.
Here is another example of elimination to find the winning person for 20 people. Suppose
we have 20 people arranged in a circle. Beginning with the first person, I proceed to count
around the circle removing every second person until everyone is removed and only one person
is left.
Number Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 4 Row 5

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of
people
1 1 1 1 17 9 9 is the winning
person
2 2 3 5 1 17
3 3 5 9 9
4 4 7 13
5 5 9 17
6 6 11
7 7 13
8 8 15
9 9 17
10 10 19
11 11
12 12
13 13
14 14
15 15
16 16
17 17
18 18
19 19
20 20


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First row I have the following numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1020
Second row, I removed every second number from the first round. Every multiple of 2 was
removed. So now I have 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17, and 19.
Third row, I end up with the following numbers: 1, 5, 9, 13 and 17. Fourth row, I have 17, 1, and
9.
Fifth row, I have 9 and 17, which leaves me with number 9 as the winning person and the last
number to be eliminated 17.

N=
Number
of
People
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20
Winner
Number
1 1 3 1 3 5 7 1 3 5 9

Working with this problem, I noticed that the pattern always starts with 1.
After completing my table, I realized that when N was a power of 2, like 2^1(2), 2^2(4),
2^3(8). For each increased by 1 in number of people, the winning number increased by 2 until
I hit the next power of 2. Every single power of 2 has a winning number of 1 and then skipping
every 2 numbers. When starting counting the people around the circle, I noticed that all even
numbers were eliminated during the first round. This made me realized that I ended up with half
of the people I started with (N/2).
For the second round, I noticed that my numbers left were double and increased by 1 (2N
+ 1). This means that I had left odd numbers only. So person 2 will always be the first person to

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be eliminated.(Ex; 1,3,5,7...) After exploring the winning numbers of the sequence, I noticed that
mod 4 could be used obtaining the following pattern;

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20
1 1 3 1 3 5 7 1 3 5 9
1 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 1


1 using mod 4 if N is an even number.
3 using mod 4 if N is an odd number
I thought this was kind of an interesting pattern even though all winning numbers are odd mod 4
was used for this sequence.
After making observations that helped me see the pattern in my problem, I came up with a
method of solving it. I called N the number of people in the circle and k=2 is the number for
every second remaining person. 2^m is a power of 2. Let say we want to find the winner for
1,000 people; we would apply the following method to solve the problem.
For N=1,000 and k=2
Winning Number = 2(N 2^m) + 1
WN= 2(1000-2^9) +1
WN= 2(1000-512) +1
WN= 2* 488 + 1
WN= 976 + 1
WN= 977
The last person remaining and declare winner is 977.

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I found that the trick for this method is to subtract off the nearest power of 2, then
multiply by 2 and add 1. I multiplied by since my sequence is every 2 numbers and then I added
1 since it is the first number of the pattern.

Problem 2:
Now assuming that we have N=1000 and K=2. What is the number of the last person
eliminated? Using the method already mentioned; Winning Number = 2(N 2^m) + 1.
We already know that the winning number is 977; we need to subtract the closest power
of 2 from 977, which is 2^9(512) so the last person to be eliminated is 465.
The following table shows how this pattern works and what would be the winning person for the
number of people arranged in a circle.
Winner(skip 1, kill 1) Number of people
1 1
1 2^1 2
3 3
1 2^2 4
3 5
5 6
7 7
1 2^3 8
3 9
5 10
7 11
9 12
11 13
13 14
15 15
1 2^4 16
3 17
5 18
7 19
9 20

8

11 21
13 22
15 23
17 24
19 25
21 26
23 27
25 28
27 29
29 30
31 31
1 2^5 32
3 33
5 34
7 35
9 36
11 37
13 38
15 39
17 40
19 41
21 42
23 43
25 44
27 45
29 46
31 47
33 48
35 49
37 50
39 51
41 52
43 53
45 54
47 55
49 56
51 57
53 58
55 59
57 60
59 61
61 62

9

63 63
1 2^6 64
3 65
5 66
7 67
9 68
11 69
13 70
15 71
17 72
19 73
21 74
23 75
25 76
27 77
29 78
31 79
33 80
127 127
1 2^7 128
255 255
1 2^8 256
511 511
1 2^9 512


Problem 3:
What happens if k = 3?
Whenever a person is passed over, we can assign a new number. Thus 1 and 2 become n+1 and
n+2, then 3 is executed; 4 and 5 become n+3 and n + 4, then 6 is executed; : : :; 3k + 1 and 3k +
2 become n + 2k + 1 and n + 2k + 2, then 3k + 3 is executed; : : : then 3n is executed (or left to
survive).

Obviously, this pattern is not as easy as working with the previous one. The problem is
much more complicated since the pattern starts with 1 and 2.

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What I noticed about this pattern is that every time the number of people is equal to the
last remaining numbers the next number will start with 2.and every time the number of people is
greater than the last remaining number the next number will start with 1. Like in the pattern
before, after the first round, half of the people were eliminated, in this case, 1/3 of the people are
eliminated so I still have 2/3 of the remaining people left (N/3). In the first round, all multiples of
three are eliminated All multiples of three are eliminated so 3+ 1 and 3N + 2 are left (i.e., 3, 6, 9,
12, 15, 18) Person 3 will always be the first person to be eliminated.
Lets say N=10

Number of
people
Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 4 Row 5 Row 6
1 1 10 8 4 10 10 4 is the
winning
number
2 2 1 10 5 4 4
3 3 2 1 8 5
4 4 4 4 10
5 5 5 5
6 6 7
7 7 8
8 8
9 9

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10 10


First row;
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Second row;
10, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8
Third row
8, 10, 1, 4, 5
Fourth row;
4, 5, 8, 10
Fifth row;
10, 4, 5
Sixth row;
10 and 4
Seventh row;
Last remaining number is 4 and the last number to be eliminated is 10.

Another table
Number
of people
Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 4 Row 5 Row 6 Row
7

1 1 13 11 8 2 11 11 2 is the
winning
person
2 2 14 13 11 4 2 2
3 3 1 14 13 8 4
4 4 2 2 2 11

12

5 5 4 4 4
6 6 5 7
7 7 7 8
8 8 8
9 9 10
10 10 11
11 11
12 12
13 13
14 14

The winning person for a group of 14 people is 2 and the last number to be eliminated is 11.
Another example to find the winning person for a group of 22 people is seen the following chart.

Number
of
people
R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R 6 R 7 R 8
1 1 25 25 25 17 17 7 7 17 is
winning
person
2 2 26 26 26 20 20 17 17
3 3 1 2 4 25 26 20

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4 4 2 4 7 26 7
5 5 4 7 11 7
6 6 5 8 13 11
7 7 7 11 17
8 8 8 13 20
9 9 10 16
10 10 11 17
11 11 13 20
12 12 14 22
13 13 16
14 14 17
15 15 19
16 16 20
17 17 22
18 18 23
19 19
20 20
21 21
22 22
23 23

14

24 24
25 25
26 26

The winning person is 17 and the last person to be eliminated is 7.
For the next 1table, I noticed I could use mode 3 for the remaining numbers.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 14 15
1 2 2 1 4 1 4 7 1 2 5
1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2


Number of
People
Winner(skip 2 , kill
1)
1 1
2 2
3 2
4 1
5 4
6 1
7 4
8 7
9 1
10 4
11 7
12 10
13 13
14 2
15 5
16 8
17 11

15

18 14
19 17
20 20
21 2
22 5
23 8
24 11
25 14
26 17
27 20
28 23
29 26
30 29
31 1
32 4
33 7
34 10
35 13
36 16
37 19
38 22
39 25
40 28
41 31
42 34
43 37
44 40
45 43
46 46
47 2
48 5
49 8
50 11
51 14
52 17
53 20
54 23
55 26
56 29
57 32
58 35
59 38

16

60 41
61 44
62 47
63 50
64 53
65 56
66 59
67 62
68 65
69 68
70 1
71 4
72 7
73 10
74 13
75 16
76 19
77 22
78 25
79 28
80 31
81 34
82 37
83 40
84 43
85 46
86 49
87 52
88 55
89 58
90 61
91 64
92 67
93 70
94 73
95 76
96 79
97 82
98 85
99 88
100 91
101 94

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102 97
103 100
104 103
105 1
106 4
107 7
108 10
109 13
110 16
111 19
112 22
113 25
114 28
115 31
116 34
117 37
118 40
119 43
120 46
121 49
122 52
123 55
124 58
125 61
126 64
127 67
128 70
129 73
130 76
131 79
132 82
133 85
134 88
135 91
136 94
137 97
138 100
139 103
140 106
141 109
142 112
143 115

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144 118
145 121
146 124
147 127
148 130
149 133
150 136
151 139
152 142
153 145
154 148
155 151
156 154
157 157
158 2
159 5
160 8
161 11
162 14
163 17
164 20
165 23
166 26
167 29
168 31
169 34
170 37
171 40
172 43
173 46
174 49
175 52
176 55
177 58
178 61
179 64
180 67
181 70
182 73
183 76
184 79
185 82

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186 85
187 88
188 91
189 94
190 97
191 100
192 103
193 106
194 109
195 112
196 115
197 118
198 121
199 124
200 127
201 130
202 133
203 136
204 139
205 142
206 145
207 148
208 151
209 154
210 157
211 160
212 163
213 166
214 169
215 172
216 175
217 178
218 181
219 184
220 187
221 190
222 193
223 196
224 199
225 202
226 205
227 208

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228 211
229 214
230 217
231 220
232 223
233 226
234 229
235 232
236 235
237 1
238 4
239 7
240 10
241 13
242 16
243 19
244 22
245 25
246 28
247 31

The pattern always starts with either 1 or 2.

Now, we can answer this problem by doing the following:
Multiply the number of rows by three. If the number you get is an odd number, you will have to
subtract by 1, but if you get an even number, you will have to subtract by 2. The safe spot value
for skip 3 for a circle of 1000 is 604.
Another way to find the winning person is by doing the following method. If you start
counting from number one and eliminate every nth person starting with person number "n", the
sequence of best places to stand can be found in this chart. For example, if you eliminate every
third person, you can use trial and error to find out that for two people the best place to stand is
position 2. After that, the best place to stand can be found by adding three to the previous best

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position, with the restriction that if the new position is higher than the number of people simply
reduce the position number by n.
Number of people Best Position
1 1
2 2
3 2 + 3 = 5 5 - 3 = 2 less
4 2 + 3 = 5 5 - 4 = 1 less
5 1 + 3 = 4
6 4 + 3 = 7 7 - 6 = 1 less
7 1 + 3 = 4
8 4 + 3 = 7
9 7 + 3 = 10 10 - 9 = 1 less
10 1 + 3 = 4
11 4 + 3 = 7
12 7 + 3 = 10
13 10 + 3 = 13 equal
14 1 3 + 3 = 16 16 - 14 = 2
15 2 + 3 = 5
16 5 + 3 = 8
17 8 + 3 = 11









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Conclusion:
There are people standing in a circle waiting to be executed. After the first man is
executed, certain number of people are skipped and one man is executed. Then again, people are
skipped and a man is executed. The elimination proceeds around the circle (which is becoming
smaller and smaller as the executed people are removed), until only the last man remains, who is
given freedom. The task is to choose the place in the initial circle so that you survive.
The Joseph problem was very challenging and hard to find a formula that will work for
the safe spot when every third, fourth person and so for was eliminated. I found that the secret to
this problem was to start smaller and then work your way up.










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Reference

Casburn L. and Phan T.: The Orthogonal Josephus Problem, July 2001
Joseph Problem: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/JosephusProblem.html