Good day, we are currently covering basic principles for algorithm optimisation and we were tasked with explaining the following problem.
Assume $x,y \in \Bbb R$. How much can the following two integers differ:
$\lfloor x \rfloor - \lfloor y \rfloor$ and $\lfloor x-y \rfloor$
These can clearly be equal but I am not quite sure how to explain or approach the explanation of how they differ.
They can differ by at most the difference between the integer parts of $x$ and $y$ but I do not think that this is enough.
Write $x=n+a$ and $y=m+b$ with $n,m\in\mathbb Z$ and $0\le a,b<1$. $\lfloor x\rfloor-\lfloor y\rfloor$ is obviously $n-m$, while $$\lfloor x-y\rfloor=\lfloor n-m+(a-b)\rfloor=n-m+\lfloor a-b\rfloor$$ From the bounds on $a,b$ we see that $-1<a-b<1$, so $\lfloor a-b\rfloor$ is 0 if $0\le a-b<1$ and $-1$ otherwise.
Therefore $\lfloor x\rfloor-\lfloor y\rfloor$ is either equal to or one greater than $\lfloor x-y\rfloor$.