1

The perfect shue

When most people shue a deck of cards, they take roughly
half the deck in each hand and intermix them. A perfect shuf-
e would take exactly half the cards in each hand and intermix
them so that a card from one hand is followed by exactly one
card from the other hand; then that card would be followed by
exactly one card from the rst hand, and so on.
1. First consider a small deck of only 16 cards, numbered 1
to 16 and put in order: 1 on top, then 2, 3, . . . , 14, 15,
and nally 16 on the bottom.
(a) Suppose you split the deck exactly in half, with the top
half in your left hand and the bottom half in your right
hand. Give the order of the cards in the two halves,
and identify which is which.
(b) Imagine a perfect shue with this small deck, with the
bottom card coming from the right hand. (So its still
card 16.) On top of that card goes the last card of the
left hand, then the next-to-last card of the right, and
so on. Give the order of the shued deck.
(c) Suppose you took that deck and repeated the shue
split the deck in half, the bottom card stays the 16, and
each card is placed on a card from the other half. Give
the order of the deck after this second shue.
(d) Give the order of the deck after each of the next two
shues. What happens?
(e) How many shues have been made?
2. What position did card 1 go to, on the rst shue? What
position did card 2 go to? Make a list or diagram showing
the position that each card went to on the rst shue.
3. Follow card 2 through all the shues, until it returned
to position 2, and list the positions (in order) where it ap-
peared. For example, the rst shue moved card 2 to posi-
tion 3. The next shue moved it to position . Then. . . .
4. List the positions (in order) where card 3 appeared and
compare them to the positions for card 2.
5. An orbit is a list of positions (in order) that a card will go
through. One you get to the end of the list, the next posi-
tion is the beginning of the list. A common way to write an
orbit is to list the positions in order and enclose them with
Problems with a Point: March 12, 2002 c EDC 2002
The perfect shue: Problem 2
parentheses. For example, card 1 always stayed in posi-
tion 1, so its orbit is (1). Card 4 goes through positions 4,
7, 13, 10, and back to 4, so its orbit is (4 7 13 10).
(a) Find the orbit that describes the positions card 16 will
go through.
(b) The orbit for 4 is given above. Do you need to write a
new orbit for 13: (13 . . . )? Explain.
(c) Find the orbit for 2.
(d) Find any other orbits for cards not yet accounted for.
(e) The length of an orbit is the number of positions in it.
What is the length of the longest orbit?
6. Before the shue, a card is in position n, where n 8.
Give the new position (in terms of n) after the perfect
shue.
7. Before the shue, a card is in position n, where n > 8.
Give the new position (in terms of n) after the perfect
shue.
Lets see what happens with a standard deck of 52 cards.
8. To make things easier, suppose the cards are all numbered The beauty of this renumbering is
that the original order doesnt
matter. Pick up any mixed-up
deck of cards and go through the
deck numbering them: the top
card is 1, the next card is 2, and
so on.
(rather than relying on suits). You have 52 cards, num-
bered 1 to 52, in order with 1 on the top and 52 on the
bottom. A perfect shue leaves card 52 on the bottom
and card 1 on the top.
(a) On the rst shue, card 23 moves to position 45 and
card 45 moves to position 38. Where is card 23 after
the second shue? Explain.
(b) A card is in position n before the shue. Find expres-
sions, in terms of n, for the position of the card after
the shue. (Youll need two expressions, as you did
for problems 6 and 7.)
(c) Find all the orbits for this deck.
(d) How many shues are required to put card 18 back in
position 18? How many are required to return card 2
to position 2? What is the largest number of shuf-
es required to put a single card back in its original
position?
(e) Suppose you shue the cards enough times to put
card 4 back into position 4. Give the order of the
entire deck, and explain how you know your answer is
correct.
Problems with a Point: March 12, 2002 c EDC 2002
The perfect shue: Answers 1
Answers
1. (a) The top half (left hand) is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8; the
bottom half (right) is 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
(b) 1, 9, 2, 10, 3, 11, 4, 12, 5, 13, 6, 14, 7, 15, 8, 16
(c) 1, 5, 9, 13, 2, 6, 10, 14, 3, 7, 11, 15, 4, 8, 12, 16
(d) 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
The deck is back to its original order.
(e) There have been 4 shues.
2. Students may organize their answers in various ways.
1 2, 2 3, 3 5, 4 7, 5 9, 6 11, 7 13,
8 15, 9 2, 10 4, 11 6, 12 8, 13 10,
14 12, 15 14, 16 16
3. 2 3 5 9 2
4. The positions for card 3 are 3, 5, 9, 2, and then 3 again.
These are the same numbersand in the same order as
for card 2, only starting with 3 instead of 2.
5. (a) (16)
(b) Theres no need to write a dierent orbit for card 13.
Card 13 moves to position 10, then to position 4 on
the next shue. Since its now in position 4, it will
follow the same orbit as card 4 on later shues. Since
when you get to the end of the list you just start over
again, the written orbit for 4 will work ne for 13, too.
(c) (2 3 5 9)
(d) (6 11); (8 15 14 12)
(e) The longest orbit has length 4.
6. 2n 1
7. 2(n 8), or equivalently 2n 16
8. (a) Card 23 is in position 38. Since the card in position 45
moves to position 38 after one shue, when card 23 is
in position 45 before a shue, it is in position 38 after
the shue.
(b) 2n1 if n 26, and 2(n26) (or equivalently 2n52)
if n > 26.
(c) (1); (2 3 5 9 17 33 14 27); (4 7 13 25 49 46 40 28);
(6 11 21 41 30 8 15 29); (10 19 37 22 43 34 16 31);
(12 23 45 38 24 47 42 32); (18 35); (20 39 26 51 50 48 44 36);
(52)
Problems with a Point: March 12, 2002 c EDC 2002
The perfect shue: Answers 2
(d) For card 18, 2 shues are required; for card 4, 8 are
required. The most is 8, because the longest orbit has
length 8.
(e) The order of the deck is again 1 to 52, in order. Card 4 Teachers Note: A very
challenging extension of this is to
determine whether (and why) the
lengths of the orbits always divide
the length of the longest orbit.
follows an orbit of length 8, which is the same length
as all but 3 of the orbits, so all the cards not following
those 3 orbits will be back where they started after
8 shues. The remaining orbits are (1), (52), and
(18 35). Cards 1 and 52 always stay where they are.
Cards 18 and 35 move, but since the orbit has length 2,
on an even number of shues theyre also back where
they started.
Problems with a Point: March 12, 2002 c EDC 2002