rainbow@ihuxe.UUCP (10/04/84)
Subject: The Geodesic Fly Consider a box, 46 inches long, 10 inches wide, and 10 inches high. Place a fly on one of the square ends, 5 inches from either side and one inch from the bottom. Similarly, place a spider on the other square ends, 5 inches from either side and one inch from the top. The fly (having a death wish) wants to reach the spider as soon as possible. Find the shortest path (52 inches) between the fly and the spider. Answer:Consider the diagonal walk down to the floor(short side), to a side wall, up to the ceiling, to the far end, and down to the spider. Expand box onto a flat surface and you see you've just proceeded in a straight line between two points. By the definition, the shortest distance. The base of the diagonal line is 48, the height 20. Trigonometry says thats 52. Of course the fly could just take to the air. The problem should state how far does the spider have to go for dinner. Robert