There is a very interesting article on this subject here: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030510/mathtrek.asp.

The article makes a few interesting points. One is that the US coin system would become more efficient (in number of coins needed to provide transaction change) if an 18 cent piece were introduced to replace the dime. Keep the dime, and introduce a 32 cent coin for even greater transaction efficiency. ...though this is going to be harder for your high-school student clerks to add in their heads.

It also mentions that the "greedy algorithm" (starting from the largest denomination and working downward) provides the most efficient (in number of coins used) solution for US coin denominations, but isn't guaranteed to do so given the denominations of other countries.


Dave

In reply to Re: OT: making change by davido
in thread pathsearch/backtracking in Perl - how to solve a problem apparently requiring it? (comparison of Perl with Standard ML) by metaperl

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