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Zach Wissner-Gross

Keeping your distance ↔️ and plowing snow ❄️ for #ThisWeeksRiddler. Two more puzzles for you in these challenging times.

fivethirtyeight.com

Can You Tell When The Snow Started?

Welcome to The Riddler. Every week, I offer up problems related to the things we hold dear around here: math, logic and probability. Two puzzles are presented e…

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5:07 PM · Apr 3, 2020

I think you can do better than this path if you and the other person coordinate on timing. Even though the other person doesn't stray from the center line, she may slow down to help you minimize the distance you travel.

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Yep! Another way of stating that is to assume you’re The Flash. Then you can zoom to (6,6), wait for the other person to pass (12-6sqrt2,0), and then zoom to (12,0), for a minimal distance of 12sqrt2 = 16.97