# 1552. Magnetic Force Between Two Balls """ in the universe earth c-137 rick discovered a special form of magnetic force between two balls if they are put in his new invented basket. rick has 'n' empty baskets the i'th basket is at 'position[i]', more has 'm' ball and needs to distribute the balls into the baskets such that the minimum magnetic force between any two balls is maximum. rick stated that magnetic force betweeen two different balls at positions 'x' and 'y' is '|x - y|'. given the integer array 'position' and the integer 'm', return the required force. """ class Solution(object): def check(self, position, m, mid): cnt, prev = 1, position[0] for i in range(1, len(position)): if position[i] - prev >= mid: cnt += 1 prev = position[i] return cnt >= m def maxDistance(self, position, m): """ :type position: List[int] :type m: int :rtype: int """ position.sort() left, right = 1, position[-1] - position[0] while right - left > 1: mid = (left + right) // 2 if self.check(position, m, mid): left = mid else: right = mid - 1 if self.check(position, m, right): return right return left if __name__ == "__main__": obj = Solution() print(obj.maxDistance(position=[1, 2, 3, 4, 7], m=3)) print(obj.maxDistance(position=[5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1000000000], m=2))