SICP Exercise 1.19

Exercise 1.19.   There is a clever algorithm for computing the Fibonacci numbers in a logarithmic number of steps. Recall the transformation of the state variables a and b in the fib-iter process of section 1.2.2a  a + b and b a. Call this transformation T, and observe that applying T over and over again n times, starting with 1 and 0, produces the pair Fib(n + 1) and Fib(n). In other words, the Fibonacci numbers are produced by applying Tn, the nth power of the transformation T, starting with the pair (1,0). Now consider T to be the special case of p = 0 and q = 1 in a family of transformations Tpq, where Tpq transforms the pair (a,b) according to a  bq + aq + ap and b  bp + aq. Show that if we apply such a transformation Tpq twice, the effect is the same as using a single transformation Tp'q' of the same form, and compute p' and q' in terms of p and q. This gives us an explicit way to square these transformations, and thus we can compute Tn using successive squaring, as in the fast-expt procedure. Put this all together to complete the following procedure, which runs in a logarithmic number of steps:41



(define (fib n)
  (fib-iter 1 0 0 1 n))
(define (fib-iter a b p q count)
  (cond ((= count 0) b)
        ((even? count)
         (fib-iter a
                   b
                   <??>      ; compute p'
                   <??>      ; compute q'
                   (/ count 2)))
        (else (fib-iter (+ (* b q) (* a q) (* a p))
                        (+ (* b p) (* a q))
                        p
                        q
                        (- count 1)))))


SOLUTION

The code is here.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SICP Exercise 4.9 do for while until

SICP Exercise 3.56 merge streams

SICP Exercise 4.14 map as compound vs. primitive type