- #1
lugita15
- 1,554
- 15
Here is an interesting puzzle from Steve Landsburg's excellent blog:
http://www.thebigquestions.com/2012/05/22/tuesday-puzzle/
"You’re in a rectangular room. Elsewhere in the room is a man with a gun, who shoots a bullet in a random direction. The bullet careens around the room, bouncing off walls, until it hits either you or one of the various punching bags you’ve placed around the room for purposes of absorbing the bullet. The punching bags must be positioned before you know the random direction of the bullet (though you do know both your own location and the bad guy’s location, neither of which you can change). How many punching bags do you need to guarantee your survival?
This being a math problem, you should treat the room as two dimensional, and yourself, the bullet and the punching bags as points."
http://www.thebigquestions.com/2012/05/22/tuesday-puzzle/
"You’re in a rectangular room. Elsewhere in the room is a man with a gun, who shoots a bullet in a random direction. The bullet careens around the room, bouncing off walls, until it hits either you or one of the various punching bags you’ve placed around the room for purposes of absorbing the bullet. The punching bags must be positioned before you know the random direction of the bullet (though you do know both your own location and the bad guy’s location, neither of which you can change). How many punching bags do you need to guarantee your survival?
This being a math problem, you should treat the room as two dimensional, and yourself, the bullet and the punching bags as points."