What is the longest pole I can swing around the 90° corner of a hallway of unit width?

For the simplicity of this problem, the pole must be kept exactly horizontal, while maneuvering it.

That the length 2 * sqrt (2) is just long enough to not be a possible solution...  You can't "Austin Powers" the pole if the given length restricts any movement whatsoever.  Theoretically, the length of this hypothetical pole should be just shy (infinitesimally smaller) than 2 * sqrt (2).

Here I have a quick question:  are we assuming the width of this pole to be nonexistent--that the pole is just a line?  If not, this problem might be practically solved if we also include the smallest measurement we will allow for adjusting the pole back and forth (given a 5 cm diameter cylindrical pole, 1/2 cm rotation shouldn't be too far out of the question...)

Posted by Benjamin J. Ladd on 2004-03-13 23:48:24