i think im going to need to attack it in a fundamentally different way. those huge tests must be absolutely massive numbers.

Sure you can. More than 4000 persons did it before.

Still not there yet.... The first 108 tests are executing is 74ms but the huge number tests always time out. Im not sure i can make this thing any more efficient than it already is.

This one is really throwing me for a loop. Ive managed to write a solution that passes 108 of tests, and in the test example is actually more perfomant than the example only needing 3 steps instead of 5, but i still time out every time. Guess its back to the drawing board again.

Not complaining by the way, I like a good puzzle, just stating this one is more challengin than usual for me.

This took me waaay too long to figure out. I think i spent a total of 10-12 hours over the course of a few days before i realized i didnt need to do anything with logarithms or find the base of every number in existence, this was a great excercise.

Wow

The description is fine. It's tricky to understand, but that is life.

Without giving away the answer, you should focus on the term 'certain power' and try to understand what that really means.

Ive managed to solve it, technically, now i am struggling to speed it up enough to keep it from timing out on the larger calculations. the first 6 tests go through no problem. but after that it always times out for taking more than 12 seconds. Its definately an excercise thats got me thinking.

As far as I could agree with you, a certain power for a special number could be actually the number of digits... and that as I said, was wrong by my side.
I don't consider myself neither a genius nor a fool, still, I think that description could be better just with another example that could unravel any interpretation (I'm not the only one).
I'm sad the tone of your answer is so much aggressive.
Have a nice day.

ok, i see what i was missing. Thank you. The wording on this one could have been done a little better. I just need to find a way to make it more perfomant.

Then your algorithm is not right. I have nothing to add, just read the description carefully, everything is there. It may not be as easy as you think.

ok, wich part am i missing? my algorithm works up to that particular value. 17^3 = 4913, but 17^4 = 83,521. and 4913 has 4 digits.

You're misunderstanding.

It seems the 4th value isnt quite right, unless i am misunderstanding it. 4+9+1+3 = 17; 171717*17 = 83,521; 83521 !=4913