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this problem is originally from a programming task I am on.

there is a number of playing cards n. the width of each card is w.

now the cards should be placed next to each other on a table with equal space. the table's width is also limited, let's call this t. so t is the available width that should be used by the cards.

now I am looking for a spacing-distance that should be put between each card depending on the above variables. cards can overlap.

so far i simply tried to interpolate depending on the number of cards, but it doesn't work out very well. i think i am missing to take the card width into account, but i don't know how.

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Let the distance between the centers of adjacent cards be $x$. Then $(n-1)x+w=t$, so $x=(t-w)/(n-1)$. That tells you how far apart to put (the centers of) adjacent cards.

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    Thanks, Chris, for fixing my typo. clamp, people make mistakes; what you do when you run into one is go back one equation and see if you can figure out what went wrong. My first equation was right, and even though I failed to solve it correctly, perhaps you could have?2011-07-13