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/
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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:
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’d expect something around ~200 for n=9 and ~400 for n=10, but I imagine this is too big to be brute forced by raw computing
Some lower bounds have been established: https://oeis.org/A099155
Either I’m misunderstanding the problem or a length of 8 is possible.
Edit: found my mistake, far left edge has two non-consecutive segments on adjacent corners. Leaving this up in case anyone else tries for a better score.
10?
Your snake has two heads.
Also, one of them shares an edge with the tail.
