|
| 1 | +# Puzzle https://adventofcode.com/2024/day/1 |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +# --- Day 1: Historian Hysteria --- |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +## --- Part One --- |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +The Chief Historian is always present for the big Christmas sleigh launch, but nobody has seen him in months! |
| 8 | +Last anyone heard, he was visiting locations that are historically significant to the North Pole; |
| 9 | +a group of Senior Historians has asked you to accompany them as they check the places they think he was most likely to visit. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +As each location is checked, they will mark it on their list with a star. They figure the Chief Historian must be |
| 12 | +in one of the first fifty places they'll look, so in order to save Christmas, you need to help them get fifty stars on |
| 13 | +their list before Santa takes off on December 25th. |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +Collect stars by solving puzzles. Two puzzles will be made available on each day in the Advent calendar; |
| 16 | +the second puzzle is unlocked when you complete the first. Each puzzle grants one star. Good luck! |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +You haven't even left yet and the group of Elvish Senior Historians has already hit a problem: their list of locations |
| 19 | +to check is currently empty. Eventually, someone decides that the best place to check first would be the |
| 20 | +Chief Historian's office. |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +Upon pouring into the office, everyone confirms that the Chief Historian is indeed nowhere to be found. |
| 23 | +Instead, the Elves discover an assortment of notes and lists of historically significant locations! T |
| 24 | +his seems to be the planning the Chief Historian was doing before he left. |
| 25 | +Perhaps these notes can be used to determine which locations to search? |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +Throughout the Chief's office, the historically significant locations are listed not by name but by a unique number |
| 28 | +called the location ID. To make sure they don't miss anything, The Historians split into two groups, |
| 29 | +each searching the office and trying to create their own complete list of location IDs. |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +There's just one problem: by holding the two lists up side by side (your puzzle input), it quickly becomes clear that |
| 32 | +the lists aren't very similar. Maybe you can help The Historians reconcile their lists? |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +For example: |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +```text |
| 37 | +3 4 |
| 38 | +4 3 |
| 39 | +2 5 |
| 40 | +1 3 |
| 41 | +3 9 |
| 42 | +3 3 |
| 43 | +``` |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +Maybe the lists are only off by a small amount! To find out, pair up the numbers and measure how far apart they are. |
| 46 | +Pair up the smallest number in the left list with the smallest number in the right list, then the second-smallest left |
| 47 | +number with the second-smallest right number, and so on. |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +Within each pair, figure out how far apart the two numbers are; you'll need to add up all of those distances. |
| 50 | +For example, if you pair up a 3 from the left list with a 7 from the right list, the distance apart is 4; if you pair |
| 51 | +up a 9 with a 3, the distance apart is 6. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +In the example list above, the pairs and distances would be as follows: |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +- The smallest number in the left list is 1, and the smallest number in the right list is 3. The distance between them is 2. |
| 56 | +- The second-smallest number in the left list is 2, and the second-smallest number in the right list is another 3. The distance between them is 1. |
| 57 | +- The third-smallest number in both lists is 3, so the distance between them is 0. |
| 58 | +- The next numbers to pair up are 3 and 4, a distance of 1. |
| 59 | +- The fifth-smallest numbers in each list are 3 and 5, a distance of 2. |
| 60 | +- Finally, the largest number in the left list is 4, while the largest number in the right list is 9; these are a distance 5 apart. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +To find the total distance between the left list and the right list, add up the distances between all of the pairs you |
| 63 | +found. In the example above, this is `2 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 5`, a total distance of `11`! |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +Your actual left and right lists contain many location IDs. What is the total distance between your lists? |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +## --- Part Two --- |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +<!--- Pass here the description for part two ---> |
| 70 | + |
0 commit comments