We remind that the permutation of some final set is a one-to-one mapping of the set onto itself. Less formally, that is a way to reorder elements of the set. For example, one can define a permutation of the set {1,2,3,4,5} as follows:
This record defines a permutation P as follows: P(1) = 4, P(2) = 1, P(3) = 5, etc.
What is the value of the expression P(P(1))? It’s clear, that P(P(1)) = P(4) = 2. And P(P(3)) = P(5) = 3. One can easily see that if P(n) is a permutation then P(P(n)) is a permutation as well. In our example (believe us)
It is natural to denote this permutation by P2(n) = P(P(n)). In a general form the defenition is as follows: P(n) = P1(n), Pk(n) = P(Pk-1(n)). Among the permutations there is a very important one — that moves nothing:
It is clear that for every k the following relation is satisfied: (EN)k = EN. The following less trivial statement is correct (we won't prove it here, you may prove it yourself incidentally): Let P(n) be some permutation of an N elements set. Then there exists a natural number k, that Pk = EN. The least natural k such that Pk = EN is called an order of the permutation P.
The problem that your program should solve is formulated now in a very simple manner: "Given a permutation find its order."