SICP Exercise 1.16

Exercise 1.16.  Design a procedure that evolves an iterative exponentiation process that uses successive squaring and uses a logarithmic number of steps, as does fast-expt. (Hint: Using the observation that (bn/2)2 = (b2)n/2, keep, along with the exponent n and the base b, an additional state variable a, and define the state transformation in such a way that the product a bn is unchanged from state to state. At the beginning of the process a is taken to be 1, and the answer is given by the value of a at the end of the process. In general, the technique of defining an invariant quantity that remains unchanged from state to state is a powerful way to think about the design of iterative algorithms.)

 SOLUTION

The code is here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SICP Exercise 4.18 a alternative strategy for interpreting internal definitions

Exercise 4.18.   Consider an alternative strategy for scanning out definitions that translates the example in the text to (lambda < vars >   (let ((u '*unassigned*)         (v '*unassigned*))     (let ((a < e1 >)           (b < e2 >))       (set! u a)       (set! v b))     < e3 >)) Here  a  and  b  are meant to represent new variable names, created by the interpreter, that do not appear in the user's program. Consider the  solve  procedure from section  3.5.4 : (define (solve f y0 dt)   (define y (integral (delay dy) y0 dt))   (define dy (stream-map f y))   y) Will this ...
Read more

SICP Exercise 3.11 make-account internal definitions with local state

Image
Exercise 3.11.    In section  3.2.3  we saw how the environment model described the behavior of procedures with local state. Now we have seen how internal definitions work. A typical message-passing procedure contains both of these aspects. Consider the bank account procedure of section  3.1.1 : (define (make-account balance)   (define (withdraw amount)     (if (>= balance amount)         (begin (set! balance (- balance amount))                balance)         "Insufficient funds"))   (define (deposit amount)     (set! balance (+ balance amount))     balance)   (define (dispatch m)     (cond...
Read more

SICP Exercise 3.13 make-cycle

Image
Exercise 3.13.    Consider the following  make-cycle  procedure, which uses the  last-pair  procedure defined in exercise  3.12 : (define (make-cycle x)   (set-cdr! (last-pair x) x)   x) Draw a box-and-pointer diagram that shows the structure  z  created by (define z (make-cycle (list 'a 'b 'c))) What happens if we try to compute  (last-pair z) ? SOLUTION The code is here: Exercise 3.13 make-cycle The box-and-pointer diagrams are here:
Read more