George lives at the corner of 1st Street and 1st Avenue. Each afternoon George visits his girlfriend, Stella, who lives at the corner of 8th Street and 8th Avenue. He varies his route but always walks 1400 meters (it is 100 meters between adjacent Streets and between adjacent Avenues). Sometimes he stops at one of the corner pubs marked as P in the diagram.

On May 1st 2006, after several months of these visits, Stella wants to get married and says to George, "If you don't propose marriage to me soon, I am going to propose to you." George replies, "Starting tomorrow I will walk a different route to your house and when I have used all the different possible routes, you can propose to me." "OK," says Stella, "but you must never go through an intersection with a pub at one of its corners." "It's a deal" replies George.

On what date will Stella be able to propose to George?

(In reply to The way I figure it (solution) by Charlie)

Hi Charlie, you solved it exactly the way I compiled the problem.

And of course I started on May 1st 2006 so that Stella could propose on February 29th, which, as Vernon pointed out, is the traditional day for a girl to propose to a reluctant boy.

Posted by Nosher on 2005-12-27 18:10:21