To practice recursion with a simple example.
Degree of Difficulty: Easy.
With the recent interest in space travel, Elon a famous rocket scientist, has invented a new
spaceship
that can travel very quickly. The following describes the motion of the rocket:
If the distance to a destination is greater than 1 meter, the rocket goes into hyperdrive and
moves half-
way to the destination in 1 minute. The rockets computer determines the speed it needs to travel
for that
distance.
If the distance to the destination is 1 meter or less, it uses its normal rockets and that takes one
minute.
For example, if the ship has to travel 10 meters, it will travel 5 meters in the first minute, 2.5
meters the
second minute, 1.25 meters the 3rd minute, and 0.625 meters the fourth minute. Finally, the
remaining
0.625 meters takes one more minute. Thus, the total time to travel 10 meters is 5 minutes. While
this
seems slow for this short distance, its performance over long distances is outstanding.
Write a recursive function called TravelTime() that calculates the time needed for the rocket to
travel a
given distance.
Then write a main program to test your function on all the following examples. Rather than
asking for console input,
use one or more compound data structures (e.g., lists) to store a) the travel distances and b) the
corresponding
message(s) for each travel distance.
Distance between spaceship base and nearest coffee shop: 537 meters.
Distance between spaceship base and its nearest moon: 3.84e8 meters (about 400 thousand km).
Average distance between earth and our sun: 1.49e11 meters (about 150 million km).
Approximate distance between sun and its closest star: 4.0e16 meters (about 4 light-years).
Size of the observable universe: 8.8e26 meters (about 93 Giga-light-years).
To practice recursion with a simple example. Degree of Difficulty.pdf
1. To practice recursion with a simple example.
Degree of Difficulty: Easy.
With the recent interest in space travel, Elon a famous rocket scientist, has invented a new
spaceship
that can travel very quickly. The following describes the motion of the rocket:
If the distance to a destination is greater than 1 meter, the rocket goes into hyperdrive and
moves half-
way to the destination in 1 minute. The rockets computer determines the speed it needs to travel
for that
distance.
If the distance to the destination is 1 meter or less, it uses its normal rockets and that takes one
minute.
For example, if the ship has to travel 10 meters, it will travel 5 meters in the first minute, 2.5
meters the
second minute, 1.25 meters the 3rd minute, and 0.625 meters the fourth minute. Finally, the
remaining
0.625 meters takes one more minute. Thus, the total time to travel 10 meters is 5 minutes. While
this
seems slow for this short distance, its performance over long distances is outstanding.
Write a recursive function called TravelTime() that calculates the time needed for the rocket to
travel a
given distance.
Then write a main program to test your function on all the following examples. Rather than
asking for console input,
use one or more compound data structures (e.g., lists) to store a) the travel distances and b) the
corresponding
message(s) for each travel distance.
Distance between spaceship base and nearest coffee shop: 537 meters.
Distance between spaceship base and its nearest moon: 3.84e8 meters (about 400 thousand km).
Average distance between earth and our sun: 1.49e11 meters (about 150 million km).
Approximate distance between sun and its closest star: 4.0e16 meters (about 4 light-years).
Size of the observable universe: 8.8e26 meters (about 93 Giga-light-years)
