• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 07:16
CET 13:16
KST 21:16
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Finals Preview: Sweet Victory!12[ASL22] Ro4 Preview: Mirror Mirror6[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: Within Reach5[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: In A Tizzy11[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Holy Diver5
Community News
[BSL23] RO16 Group Stage14Weekly Cups (Nov 2-8): herO back on top?2Weekly Cups (Oct 26 - Nov 1): MaxPax, herO, Solar win0Weekly Cups (October 19-25): Clem triples first in 5.0.175Evil Geniuses - shutting down23
StarCraft 2
General
Serral's getting trashed by New Catsle's Mind Weekly Cups (Nov 2-8): herO back on top? Liquibets sc2 season 30 No more SC2 streamers on team liquid? StarCraft open world shooter announced at BlizzCon
Tourneys
soO & FanTaSy return! SC2 Kevin Scrim 4v4 (Nov 16) RSL goes to London! 2026 Offline Finals Nov 21-22 Tasteless Time Warp: SC Evo Showmatch (May 25) Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament iNu's Battles #22
Strategy
[H] ZvP Mid-Late Game: Stalkers Collossi HT
Custom Maps
Starcraft 2 Advance [G] How to playtest arcade maps [D] the control group Simple Questions/Answers
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 551 Robotic Revival Mutation # 550 Graveyard Shift Mutation # 549 Endless Sparkles
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion List of top players active on ShieldBattery [BSL23] RO16 Group Stage screpdb: new Starcraft reporting tool [BW] Looking for Clan Thread!
Tourneys
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 4 BWCL Season 65 Announcement [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL23] Ro16 Group C - Sunday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Infested Terran strategies in 2026 Nuke strategy worked in K-League 2026-11-09 50,000-Word Terran Builds Memo 2026-10-22 Cliff Jump Revisited (1 in a 1000 strategy)
Other Games
General Games
List of Game Threads The PlayStation 5 Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile
Dota 2
Can Game Data Analytics Help Players Improvements
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
Trading/Investing Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Dating: How's your luck? US Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
Fan Club Resource Thread Reynor Fan Club The Flash Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Recent Gifted Posts
Blogs
The time I organised my…
AssyrianKing
Why I built Repalyzer (1.1.…
BlueStar
Innovate or Game Over?
TrAiDoS
ShieldBattery on Mac
Kraekkling
[ASL22] Ro4 Day1 Ticket Giv…
bITt.mAN
Can Bots Beat Pros?? Starcr…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 14243 users

Math Problem: Placing a Bridge

Blogs > micronesia
Post a Reply
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24813 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-09-13 01:27:03
September 13 2009 01:25 GMT
#1
I just thought this up and it might be trivial or difficult... not sure.

Consider the following picture:

+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

I made it in mspaint lol


A land mass that sticks out into the ocean was originally accessible only by a small road at the northern end. A bridge (red) is going to be constructed somewhere along the length of the land mass in order to increase accessibility to the land mass as much as possible. If the length of the land mass is L (thickness of access road negligible), express x, the distance of the bridge from the topmost part of the land mass, in terms of L.

0<x<=L

edit: Assume traffic (or w/e) comes equally from off the map in Both the Northen and Southern directions equally.

*****
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
azndsh
Profile Blog Joined August 2006
United States4447 Posts
September 13 2009 01:34 GMT
#2
where are their destinations? is that assumed to be uniform along the island?
azndsh
Profile Blog Joined August 2006
United States4447 Posts
September 13 2009 01:36 GMT
#3
are we talking about people entering the island or leaving the island as well... or is it half/half

if it's just entering, x = L
if you're coming from the north, you use the north entrance
if you're coming from the south, you use the south entrance
deconduo
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Ireland4122 Posts
September 13 2009 01:37 GMT
#4
If each bridge can take any volume of traffic, then I supoose + Show Spoiler +
X=(2/3)L
seems like an obvious choice.
nttea
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Sweden4353 Posts
September 13 2009 01:40 GMT
#5
On September 13 2009 10:37 deconduo wrote:
If each bridge can take any volume of traffic, then I supoose + Show Spoiler +
X=(2/3)L
seems like an obvious choice.

yep! though i suck at math, this would mean everyone has at most 1/3rd L distance to the nearest route to the mainland
Z-BosoN
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Brazil2590 Posts
September 13 2009 01:44 GMT
#6
Well the farthest points are the end of the landmass and the mid-section of the bridge and landmass entry. So my first answer would be x=2L/3

But then I figured that there are two ways to get to the midsection and 1 to get to the end of the mass. So surely x>2L/3.

The difficulty of this problem is interpreting mathematically what he means by "accesibility". I will use physics consider it being the smallest time it would take for people to fill the bridge. Suppose the crowd has velocity v and enters the bridge and the entrance at the same time.

For the people coming from the North:

d_1=L-vt

From the bridge going up:

d_2=(L-x)+vt

From the bridge going down:

d_3=(L-x)-vt

so d_1+d_2+d_3=L . Therefore:

L=3L-2x-vt
vt=2L-2x

And we have d_1=d_2:

L-vt=(L-x)+vt
2vt=x
vt=x/2

Substituting:

x/2=2L-2x
5x/2=2L

x=4L/5

Didn't revise it, hope it is correct.




deconduo
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Ireland4122 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-09-13 01:47:41
September 13 2009 01:46 GMT
#7
On September 13 2009 10:40 nttea wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2009 10:37 deconduo wrote:
If each bridge can take any volume of traffic, then I supoose + Show Spoiler +
X=(2/3)L
seems like an obvious choice.

yep! though i suck at math, this would mean everyone has at most 1/3rd L distance to the nearest route to the mainland


Yep, though only thing that could affect it is volume of traffic. If each bridge can only handle a certain amount its different, because in this case bridge 2 takes twice as much as bridge 1.
JeeJee
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Canada5652 Posts
September 13 2009 02:13 GMT
#8
On September 13 2009 10:40 nttea wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2009 10:37 deconduo wrote:
If each bridge can take any volume of traffic, then I supoose + Show Spoiler +
X=(2/3)L
seems like an obvious choice.

yep! though i suck at math, this would mean everyone has at most 1/3rd L distance to the nearest route to the mainland

the thing is, the question is asking to make the island evenly accessible to the mainlanders not the other way around. in which case azndsh's answer is correct as that eliminates any possibility of having to retrace your steps, plus we know that the people come off the map so we don't have to worry about those that spawn between both bridges
(\o/)  If you want it, you find a way. Otherwise you find excuses. No exceptions.
 /_\   aka Shinbi (requesting a name change since 27/05/09 ☺)
Hypnosis
Profile Blog Joined October 2007
United States2061 Posts
September 13 2009 02:17 GMT
#9
+ Show Spoiler +
x = L+ (L-x).
Science without religion is lame, Religion without science is blind
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24813 Posts
September 13 2009 02:28 GMT
#10
Ok just got done with something and now I'm actually thinking about this.

On September 13 2009 11:13 JeeJee wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2009 10:40 nttea wrote:
On September 13 2009 10:37 deconduo wrote:
If each bridge can take any volume of traffic, then I supoose + Show Spoiler +
X=(2/3)L
seems like an obvious choice.

yep! though i suck at math, this would mean everyone has at most 1/3rd L distance to the nearest route to the mainland

the thing is, the question is asking to make the island evenly accessible to the mainlanders not the other way around. in which case azndsh's answer is correct as that eliminates any possibility of having to retrace your steps, plus we know that the people come off the map so we don't have to worry about those that spawn between both bridges


I think accessibility for the mainlanders works out to the same thing as accessibility for those living on the smaller land mass.

Although you are right that (I think) the key here is that people can 'spawn' from above or below the map. One thing I want to think about is what proportion of people are coming from the extreme North/South, and what proportion of people are coming from due west of the bridge (south of the northernmost tip of the landmass and north of the southernmost tip). If the percentage of people coming from due west is significant, then the location of the bridge depends on the relative amounts. If the percentage is negligible (0), then x=L makes sense.

When I was creating the problem, I was thinking more along the lines of the case where x!=L. As such, perhaps I should think about redefining the problem such that people can only spawn above/below certain latitudes.
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
evanthebouncy!
Profile Blog Joined June 2006
United States12816 Posts
September 13 2009 03:10 GMT
#11
On September 13 2009 11:17 Hypnosis wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
x = L+ (L-x).


u realize that simplifies to x = L right?
Life is run, it is dance, it is fast, passionate and BAM!, you dance and sing and booze while you can for now is the time and time is mine. Smile and laugh when still can for now is the time and soon you die!
Saracen
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5139 Posts
September 13 2009 03:22 GMT
#12
Sorry if I'm not understanding this correctly, but what do you mean by "accessibility" (how do you measure it?) And if it's what I think it is, how is this different from a center of mass problem?
JeeJee
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Canada5652 Posts
September 13 2009 03:27 GMT
#13
On September 13 2009 11:28 micronesia wrote:
Ok just got done with something and now I'm actually thinking about this.

Show nested quote +
On September 13 2009 11:13 JeeJee wrote:
On September 13 2009 10:40 nttea wrote:
On September 13 2009 10:37 deconduo wrote:
If each bridge can take any volume of traffic, then I supoose + Show Spoiler +
X=(2/3)L
seems like an obvious choice.

yep! though i suck at math, this would mean everyone has at most 1/3rd L distance to the nearest route to the mainland

the thing is, the question is asking to make the island evenly accessible to the mainlanders not the other way around. in which case azndsh's answer is correct as that eliminates any possibility of having to retrace your steps, plus we know that the people come off the map so we don't have to worry about those that spawn between both bridges


I think accessibility for the mainlanders works out to the same thing as accessibility for those living on the smaller land mass.


Ah true, I was thinking asymmetrically (where mainlanders can only appear north or south of the bridges as stated, but islanders' destination could be somewhere in between both bridges as well as north/south if that makes any sense at all..)

Either way, as the problem is currently phrased, it's trivialized to x=L. Now if we split the spawn points equally between North, South and West, I believe it becomes a little more complicated..
(\o/)  If you want it, you find a way. Otherwise you find excuses. No exceptions.
 /_\   aka Shinbi (requesting a name change since 27/05/09 ☺)
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24813 Posts
September 13 2009 03:30 GMT
#14
On September 13 2009 12:22 Saracen wrote:
Sorry if I'm not understanding this correctly, but what do you mean by "accessibility" (how do you measure it?) And if it's what I think it is, how is this different from a center of mass problem?

Intentionally I'm being a little bit vague about what I mean. The way I define this determines what the answer is. I think I sort of took a stance when I said that cars come from both the extreme North and extreme South.

If we then assume that cars can spawn west of the land mass anywhere between latitudes equivalent to the northernmost and southernmost tips of the land mass, then we've got ourselves a calculation to do as the answer is most likely not trivially x=L.
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
WardiTV Invitational
21:00
WardiTV Not-Summer Championshi
Lambo vs Shameless
Rogue vs uThermal
Percival vs YoungYakov
TBD vs GgMaChine
ComeBackTV 221
WardiTV156
Rex57
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
mouzHeroMarine 220
ProTech160
Rex 57
Classic 13
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 34561
Rain 1916
Jaedong 617
Mini 388
Light 294
EffOrt 276
Larva 225
Rush 173
firebathero 165
Last 158
[ Show more ]
Snow 157
Hyun 148
Killer 146
Stork 131
Pusan 94
Sea.KH 50
Aegong 42
Movie 41
Shinee 37
Barracks 35
hero 29
ToSsGirL 29
soO 27
Noble 23
Shine 22
sorry 20
Hm[arnc] 19
Sacsri 12
Terrorterran 10
Free 9
Dota 2
Dendi1066
monkeys_forever378
XcaliburYe147
Counter-Strike
fl0m3656
olofmeister683
shoxiejesuss563
allub133
kRYSTAL_16
Other Games
singsing1267
B2W.Neo737
Lowko311
XaKoH 232
syndereN184
crisheroes177
Mew2King107
dupreeh87
ViBE49
ArmadaUGS10
Organizations
StarCraft 2
angryscii 22
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 10
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• CranKy Ducklings SOOP12
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• ChaeLyn 4
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV506
League of Legends
• Jankos2306
• Stunt652
Upcoming Events
OSC
3h 44m
OSC
10h 44m
ArT vs MindelVK
MiniZergUA vs TBD
Shameless vs TBD
Ultimate Battle
23h 44m
OSC
1d 1h
OSC
1d 11h
ByuN vs MaxPax
herO vs Krystianer
Percival vs Shameless
LetaleX vs YoungYakov
Nicoract vs Gerald
GgMaChine vs ArT
CranKy Ducklings
1d 21h
WardiTV Invitational
1d 23h
IPSL
2 days
TerrOr vs IJ_Terran
rasowy vs Hazorath
BSL
2 days
TerrOr vs OyAji
UltrA vs Gosudark
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
[ Show More ]
WardiTV Invitational
2 days
IPSL
3 days
Art_Of_Turtle vs KameZerg
Radley vs George
BSL
3 days
Artosis vs Dewalt
Ret vs Tech
WardiTV Weekly
3 days
PiGosaur Cup
5 days
The PondCast
5 days
GSL
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-11-11
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
HCC Season 3

Ongoing

Acropolis #5
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 4
International ShieldBattery League
Individual League
BSL Season 23
IPSL Winter 2026-27
Calamity Cup Div. A Season 8
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
BLAST Open Fall 2026

Upcoming

YSL S4
Sector 591
SC4ALL II: Brood War
BSL 23: Non-Korean Championship
HSC XXX
Stellar Fest 2: Lunar Cup
StarCraft2 Weekly Open Tournament 2026 Grand Finals
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Underdog Cup 2026 Div 2-3
PGL Bucharest 2027
BLAST Bounty Winter 2027
PGL Major Singapore 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 6
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.