xkcd #3125: Snake-in-the-Box Problem
Title text:
Chemistry grad students have been spotted trying to lure campus squirrels into laundry hampers in the hope that it sparks inspiration.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3125/
What about goats in circular pens? A goat is tied to the fence of a circular pen. How long does the rope need to be so that the goat can reach exactly half of the pen's area? What sounds like a high school math problem was eventually solved in 2020 via complex analysis.
Here's the answer:
I feel like the answer should be much simpler than that equation salad.
Equation salad? It's elegant. Well, according to my father who was a math professor.
Deriving that monstrosity must be something out of a grad school horror novel.
The difficulty is that the goat is tied to the fence.
It would be a lot easier to put a pole in the center of the circle.
The length of the rope would then be 0.5 x sqr(2) x fence radius.
What's really neat about this problem is that the 3D example, a bird in a cage, was solved sooner and is much simpler
I thought "wtf" after reading the problem, said "wtf" out loud after reading this comment. pretty neat :)