• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 16:43
CEST 22:43
KST 05:43
  • 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
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2914Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
Weekly Cups (July 27-Aug 2): SHIN's big week0SC4ALL II: Brood War - $2500 - Dec 5-66SC4ALL II announced - $10,000 prize pool, Dec 5-63PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August)11Neeb returns to progaming; rejoins ONSYDE15
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: StarCraft 2 Player Announcement 2/8 Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) August World Ranking: Clem climbs to #2 Daily SC2 Player Grid - feedback wanted Weekly Cups (July 27-Aug 2): SHIN's big week
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event INu's Battles #19 2-Days Event SC4ALL II announced - $10,000 prize pool, Dec 5-6
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 537 Hostile Territory Mutation # 536 Railroad Switch Mutation # 535 Assembly of Vengeance
Brood War
General
BW Drama: Terror's Debt Incident + C9 disbanding BW General Discussion Recent recommended BW games ASL22 General Discussion Making an Online Broodwar Manager Game
Tourneys
2v2v2v2 Tournament [Megathread] Daily Proleagues SC4ALL II: Brood War - $2500 - Dec 5-6 Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Any training maps people recommend? Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation
Other Games
General Games
ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live! Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread US Politics Mega-thread Artificial Intelligence Thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine
Fan Clubs
The Clem Fan Club INnoVation Fan Club The Scarlett Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023 McBoner: A hockey love story
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
What is a Gamer?
TrAiDoS
Hello guys!
LIN1s
ASL S22 English Commentary…
namkraft
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 2928 users

Ants math problem

Blogs > jtan
Post a Reply
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 24 2008 18:43 GMT
#1
Well the other one got beaten pretty fast. So time for another one! Nothing new, but I like this one.

4 ants are sitting in the 4 corners of a table with side a.
Suddenly all ants sees the ant to it's right, and starts moving towards it. How far will each ant walk before they all meet?

Back up your amswer with calculations and don't post anything you didn't do yourself.

Good luck!

****
Enter a Uh
Cambium
Profile Blog Joined June 2004
United States16368 Posts
February 24 2008 18:45 GMT
#2
If this is what I think it is, I saw something similar on my calc 1 exam...
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
KarlSberg~
Profile Blog Joined September 2003
731 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-02-24 19:14:32
February 24 2008 19:05 GMT
#3
I'm not absolutely sure but
+ Show Spoiler +
From the point of view of an ant (any of them obviously), at any instant the speed of the ant you are following is orthogonal to your own speed. The relative speed simply is... your own speed (speed vector is not the same because of direction but its norm is the same).
Which means you will close the gap in the exact same time as if the ant you are following was not moving.
So the length of the spiral every ant walks is the side of the table.
There are 01 kind of people who know binary. Those who understand little endian and those who don t.
15vs1
Profile Joined November 2007
64 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-02-24 19:42:47
February 24 2008 19:39 GMT
#4
+ Show Spoiler +

Using the symmetry of this problem (all ants are similar) one can infer that we can yield coordinates of the next anth by rotating corrdinates of the previous. Using this we can easy recieve following equations (in polar coordinates, origin in the centre of table)
[image loading]

Solution of this system is logarithmic spiral, it is not relevant for this problem because we can use first equation to obtain the time before they meet (when r=0, initial r is sqrt2/2*a)
[image loading]

where V-velocity of ants.
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 24 2008 19:45 GMT
#5
that probably holds karlsberg, so good job, but I intended it to be harder

adding: give an equation for the curves of the ants paths.
Enter a Uh
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-02-24 19:50:49
February 24 2008 19:49 GMT
#6
Yeah 15vs1 got it too.

Where do you get those equation pics from? Looking sweet.
Enter a Uh
15vs1
Profile Joined November 2007
64 Posts
February 24 2008 19:54 GMT
#7
http://www.texify.com you enter your equation in latex language and it generates pic for it.
aseq
Profile Joined January 2003
Netherlands4015 Posts
February 24 2008 19:54 GMT
#8
Aren't the four ants each walking a quarter circle? Their looking pattern is a square which gets smaller and rotates one quarter.

Length of circle = 2PI * R
Length of quarter circle PI * R / 2
R is half a side, so:
PI * side / 4


jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 24 2008 20:07 GMT
#9
no aseq, they form a logarithmic spiral, not half a circle. they are always facing the other ant, first they move pretty straight and then they turn more and more as they get closer. Try drawing it.
Enter a Uh
aseq
Profile Joined January 2003
Netherlands4015 Posts
February 24 2008 20:16 GMT
#10
Oh, could very well be, i can't really imagine the shape of it...but i wouldn't know how to measure the length of a spiral anyway, so i'll leave that to the brighter minds.
ToT)SiLeNcE(
Profile Blog Joined February 2003
Germany590 Posts
February 24 2008 21:38 GMT
#11
Hehe I was unable to solve this puzzle because I had to think of scvs circling around a vespene geyser all the time and therefore thought they wouldn't meet at all. lol.
jtan
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden5891 Posts
February 25 2008 06:40 GMT
#12
On February 25 2008 06:38 ToT)SiLeNcE( wrote:
Hehe I was unable to solve this puzzle because I had to think of scvs circling around a vespene geyser all the time and therefore thought they wouldn't meet at all. lol.

Haha!

If you put 4 scvs in the corners of an empty map and order them to attack eachother, you will probably get the same effect though
Enter a Uh
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 3h 17m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Railgan 109
RushiSC 32
SpeCial 20
CosmosSc2 16
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 4254
Dewaltoss 151
Dota 2
syndereN254
canceldota63
League of Legends
Doublelift2814
Counter-Strike
shoxiejesuss1930
minikerr68
Heroes of the Storm
Liquid`Hasu450
Other Games
Grubby2927
FrodaN2043
fl0m975
Beastyqt694
C9.Mang0441
UpATreeSC196
Pyrionflax160
JuggernautJason107
XaKoH 102
Organizations
Other Games
BasetradeTV63
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Other Games
• imaqtpie925
• Shiphtur415
Upcoming Events
PiGosaur Cup
3h 17m
Replay Cast
12h 17m
Kung Fu Cup
14h 17m
Replay Cast
1d 3h
The PondCast
1d 13h
INu's Battles
1d 14h
Percival vs Cure
Classic vs Clem
Replay Cast
2 days
Escore
2 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
2 days
RSL Revival
3 days
herO vs SHIN
Clem vs Solar
Serral vs Rogue
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
4 days
WardiTV Weekly
5 days
The Patches Monday
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
PiG Sty Festival
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-03
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
RSL Revival: Season 6
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026

Upcoming

Acropolis #5
Escore Tournament S3: W6
Escore Tournament S3: W7
CSLAN 4
ASL Season 22
Escore Tournament S3: W8
Acropolis #5 - TRS
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
Thunderpick World Champ.
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
Logitech G Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
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.