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Disks are dropped randomly into abox (Fig. 7.1),butthey stay put
only if they fall into afree spot.Most of the time, this is notthe case,
and the last disk must be removed again.Itthustakes a long time to fill
the box. In this chapter, westudy algorithms that do this much faster:
they go fromtime t = 4262to t = 20332in one step, and also find
out that the box is then full and that no more disks can be added.All
problems considered in this chapter treat dynamic problems, where time
dependence plays an essential role.
t = 1 t = 2 t = 3 t = 4 t = 5 ...
t = 12 t = 13 t = 16 t = 47 t = 4262 t = 20332
Fig. 7.1 Random sequential deposition of disks in a box. Any disk gen-
erating overlaps (as at time t = 3) is removed.