An unlucky gardener planted a 10x10 square array of 100 old seeds out in the garden. Only 5 of these seeds have germinated including one at the southwest corner (0,0) where a slug is currently reducing it to ground level.
When it finishes it will head directly to the next closest doomed plant. After it eats that one it will again leave a slime trail to the closest remaining plant and so on until the garden is no more.
Where are the 4 remaining seedlings if the path crawled by the slug is the longest possible and it never has to choose between two equidistant snacks?
Note: Although the slug will never have to choose between two equidistant seedlings, this doesn't imply that no two are equidistant.
Next find the locations if 6 seedlings had germinated instead of 5.
(In reply to
re: computer solution to 6 by Dej Mar)
These are the four solutions for the 6-seedling problem that are longer than 36.5 (you can also flip these around the major diagonal as well):
0 0 7 4 5 7 9 8 9 0 0 9 36.51883671073806
0 0 6 5 5 9 9 8 9 0 0 9 36.78438298849983
0 0 6 5 5 9 9 9 9 0 0 8 36.97494988031661
0 0 6 5 5 9 9 9 0 9 8 0 36.97494988031661
Edited on June 26, 2006, 9:51 am
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Posted by Charlie
on 2006-06-26 09:48:59 |