Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Black Hole




If this was a minigolf hole, you can't reach B from A. Ever.

If this was a room lined with mirrors, and you lit a candle at point A, you can't see it from B, not even reflected. 


Update: I guess I didn't explain this all the way through. You can't reach B from A with just one stroke, there's no direct line between them, and there is no way to bounce the ball (assuming perfect conditions). Thanks to Ben for pointing this obvious error. 

4 comments:

  1. Sure you can. Putt from A downwards halfway to the wall. Putt right until the ball is directly beneath B. Putt up. Hole in 3. There might also be a hole in one angle between A and B, but I'd have to measure to be sure.

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  2. Sorry, I meant to say you can't hit it with one shot, even if you bounce it. The line between A and B means you can't shoot it directly, it would hit as a corner.

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  3. I realized that must have been what you meant a little while after posting. An interesting mathematical problem would be to try to find optimal configurations like this with various constraints in place.

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  4. Yup, what drives me nuts is I understand the mini golf part of the problem 100%, but I can't wrap my head around the light source issue.

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