Minimum Number of Seconds to Make Mountain Height Zero | Code Deep Dive Episode 4
Welcome to Episode 4 of the Code Deep Dive series!
In this session, we break down the challenging problem: "Minimum Number of Seconds to Make Mountain Height Zero" (Leetcode 3296).
What will you learn?
1. Clear problem explanation with real-life examples
2. Step-by-step math intuition behind the formula
3. Visualized splits between workers to minimize total time
4. Code walkthrough with simple comments (C++, but logic applies to any language)
5. Binary search + quadratic math to handle tricky constraints
Who is this for?
1. Programmers preparing for tech interviews (Google, Meta, etc.)
2. Anyone looking to improve their problem-solving and coding skills
3. Listeners who want complex coding ideas explained simply
🏔️ Example
Suppose:
Mountain height, H = 6
Worker times: workerTimes = [1, 2]
(Worker 1 is fast, Worker 2 is slower)
1️⃣ The Problem Restated
We want to split the 6 units of mountain between two workers, so that both are working at the same time, and the total time is as small as possible.
Time to remove k units for worker with time t:
t * (1 + 2 + ... + k) = t * k * (k+1) / 2
2️⃣ Try Manual Distributions
Let’s see what happens if we do different splits:
👇 Try the problem yourself! Comment below your optimal split for the sample test case (Height = 6, Worker times = [1, 2]) 👇
#leetcode #codinginterview #algorithm #mountainproblem #binarysearch
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