> Let's ignore the contents. Given t elements, how many samples > does it take to arrive at n, where 0 <= n <= t? > > Maybe that's clearer.. I had trouble describing this to someone > else to-day; he kept telling me log2(t), also.. as in 'it will never > take more than log2(t) tries to find a cell.' Not what I want. I think what you're asking for is ... log2 (|t/2 - n|) Cheers, Wayne