OFFSET
1,6
COMMENTS
a(n) is a lower bound for the number of items outside the instance of n-1 at one end of a Colombian variant Langford pairing (A336747). For example, one of the most lop-sided pairings for n=7 is 4 1 6 1 7 4 3 5 2 6 3 2 7 5, and there are a(n)=2 items to the left of the first '6'. This bound is tight until at least n=184.
LINKS
MATHEMATICA
Table[Ceiling[(n - 1 - Sqrt[n + 1])/2], {n, 1, 100}] (* Amiram Eldar, Aug 21 2020 *)
PROG
(Magma) [Ceiling((n-1-Sqrt(n+1))/2) : n in [1..100]]; // Wesley Ivan Hurt, Aug 21 2020
(PARI) a(n) = ceil((n-1-sqrt(n+1))/2); \\ Michel Marcus, Aug 19 2020
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn,easy
AUTHOR
Edward Moody, Aug 16 2020
STATUS
approved