Four snails

Four snails travel in uniform, rectilinear motion on a very large plane surface. The directions of their paths are random, (but not parallel, i.e.any two snails can meet), but no more than two snail paths can cross at any one point. Five of the (4 X 3)/2 = 6 possible encounters have already occurred. Can we state with certainty that the sixth encounter will also occur?

10 Answers

3
iitimcomin ·

yes we can say that..........

66
kaymant ·

justification?

3
iitimcomin ·

is it correct sir????

1
Pavithra Ramamoorthy ·

dis s a very familiar question.... saw it lon before... ve to think fr d ans.....

pls wait a min.

66
kaymant ·

you must have thought something before answering, isn't it? state them... if your logic is correct, your answer must be correct..otherwise we shall try to improve on it..[1]

21
tapanmast Vora ·

sir, can u pl. chk my answer in ur capillary tube questn

3
iitimcomin ·

5 meetingz have already occured, so any snail suppose be 1 has met 3 OF OTHER SNAILS 2,3,4 //// 2,3,4 thus have met 1 For the remaining 2 encounters, 2 have met both 3 & 4.

2&3 must also meet each other at some other time..

thus 6 encounters

1
The Race begins... ·

First of all, slight analytical observation will give a conclusion that any two of the four snails must have undergone all possible collisions.

Say first two snails viz., S1 and S2 have undergone all collisions. Now observing from the point of view of S1, it collides with S2 and also with S3, implies S2 and S3 must have also collided with each other and now observing it from the point of view of S3 with reference to S2 and S4 also gives the same result, extending this observation makes it certain that sixth collision must have also occured.

correct me if i am wrong !

1
The Race begins... ·

confirmation please.!

66
kaymant ·

okay

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