Question

Suppose you are going from city A to city B. You have downloaded a map that contains the distances in miles between all the petrol stations in your route. You know that car's petrol tank can hold petrol for n miles. Suppose you stop at every petrol station. Does it gives the best solution? If not, give the best solution.

Answer 1

Stopping at every petrol station doesn't give a best solution.

The Best solution according to me is:

Initially,we must go the petrol station nearest to us in the city A and we should fill the petrol tank to full so that the car can move upto n miles.Since,we have downloaded a map that contains distance in miles between all the petrol stations in our route and we know that our car can travel upto next 'n' miles.Therefore,we can go to the petrol station after 'n' miles in our route by following the downloaded route map rather than stopping at every petrol station and filling the petrol tank.The best way is to stop at the petrol station after travelling 'n' miles,refill the petrol tank again to full and this process continues untill we reach city B.

If the distance between city A and city B is less than 'n' miles,then number of petrol stations at which we fill the tank is 1.This is the best case.