A fly on a cube (Posted on 2002-04-23)

Consider the cube shown (assume for argument's sake that it's a perfect cube, contraty to what the picture may look like).

A fly, sitting in the vertex (A) of this cube must travel the surface of the cube until it arrives at the vertex (G).

If the fly cannot leave the surface of the cube, what is the shortest path for the fly to take between the two points?

	Submitted by levik
Rating: 3.3636 (11 votes)
Solution:	(Hide)
The shortest path is for the fly to travel to the poing exactly in the middle of (D) and (E), and then head straight for (G) from there. The reason is that if you "unfold" the cube, and bring the faces ABED and DEGF into one plane, it will become obvious that this is actually a "straight line" path between (A) and (G). (The fly can also travel through the midpoint between (F) and (D).)

	Subject	Author	Date
	No Subject	varadarajan	2009-06-04 04:13:13
	math, no assumptions	David Stanley	2006-09-17 04:13:55
	re: no math needed	vije	2004-07-02 14:51:49
	no math needed	rixar	2004-06-07 22:15:42
	Solution (Mathematical)	Popstar Dave	2003-10-30 07:49:12
	Solution	Antonio	2003-08-30 08:13:15
	Solution	ethan	2003-08-10 12:54:36
	?>*&%!@#$.	dorkdork	2003-08-02 23:22:58
	more..	DJ	2003-05-22 17:01:27
	easy! solution:	calla tah-n	2003-05-21 20:05:06
	re: Doubt.....	TomM	2003-01-17 08:20:43
	re: Doubt.....	Cory Taylor	2003-01-17 07:21:13
	Doubt.....	Gautam Joshi	2003-01-16 19:29:07
	A fly on a cube	Karen	2002-04-30 12:57:45
	solution	Paul	2002-04-23 06:10:28