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| Hungry Ant (Posted on 2005-01-21) |
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In a huge room lives a very hungry ant. The room is 4 meters wide, 4 meters high and 10 meters long. The ant is on one of the 4x4-meter walls, right in the middle (2 meters from each of the 4x10-meter walls), and 1 meter from the ceiling. Its food is on the opposite wall, also in the middle, but 1 meter from the floor. The poor ant is very hungry, and won't be able to walk more than 13.99 meters without dropping dead. Can it survive?
(The ant cannot fly, jump etc.)
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Submitted by Detti
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Rating: 3.3333 (3 votes)
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Solution:
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(Hide)
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Spread the room in two dimensions. Eg. sketch the ceiling (4x10 m), one wall under it (4x10m). Draw the 4x4 m wall with the ant starting from the ceiling on the right, and the opposite 4x4 m wall starting from the 4x10 m wall on the left. Draw the positions of the ant and the food in the sketch, and by using Pythagoras-formula, it is easy to see, that the shortest distance is approximately 13,93 m. |
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