Separation principle?

hihihi9993

The definition is "if two variables cannot be next to one another, there must be at least one space separating them", and the equation is Total slots – # w/i variable = # empty slots between the variables.

Can any body give a full explanation on what separation principle is? I don't get what w/i variable represents... Thanks in advance!

Sami

Hey,

So I am not sure where the definition is from so I do not know what w/i might mean. But if two variables cannot be next to each other and both have to be placed on our game board then we know that they will have to have a space between them.

For example. Here is a simple game. I have a flyer from my local ice cream shop. It says that of the three flavors they have available - chocolate (C), vanilla (V) , strawberry (S)- I can try one flavor each day for free. The sale is going on for three days and I have to go all three days. But there are some rules.
1) No flavor can be repeated.
2) Chocolate and Vanilla cannot be next to each other.

This means I only have two options:
CSV
VSC

Because the moment I put chocolate and vanilla next to each other I am violating my rule #2. In this way it was easy to determine where things go.

But lets say now we have 4 flavors and 4 days. Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, and Butterscotch.
But we still cannot have Chocolate and Vanilla next to each other.
But all we have to wait for is a placement of one of these variables for our distribution to trigger.
For example:
if Strawberry goes in spot 1, we now have only two ways the rest of the variables can go:
SCBV
SVBC

If Strawberry went in spot 2
Then we know that Butterscotch cannot go in spot 1 otherwise C and V will be next to each other in spot 3 and 4. So one of C/V will have to go in spot 1.

and so on.

I hope this helped answer your question. If not, I would be happy to understand what the question exactly was and try to help you that way.

hihihi9993

Thank you!