upvote
You can just move the lightest half of the boxes each time.
reply
A few additional constraints:

  - the boxes are stacked
  - the heavy boxes are at the bottom of a stack, and you can't stack a heavy box on top of a light one
  - boxes aren't the same size
  - some boxes are open, so must be put on top
  - storage space and height are limited
reply
If you randomly index them and there's enough of them then on average the partitions average out.
reply
This is true, but it probably isn't a box of books that's beeping.

I also feel like ordering the moves by lightest box first is reasonable as a real-world optimization.

reply
Typically, the heavy boxes are at the bottom too; to some extent, the piles will already be sorted by weight.
reply
Lol classic “ignore the constant factor” gotcha when using Big-O.
reply