Mathematics marathon

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I'll need to think of a problem more like these, I guess. Nobody likes my integrals :(

I'm sure I would if I knew anything about them!


Here's a problem:

On each corner of an equilateral triangle is an ant. Let's call each ant A, B and C.
They then start to crawl towards each other at the same speed. A crawls towards B, B crawls towards C, C crawls towards A.
How far have they crawled, in relation to the side length of the triangle, when they meet?
 
At the very start of the problem, wouldn't they at least begin walking along the triangle's side, and turn inwards?
 
Still haven't seen a fully written out/proved solution for the polynomial problem ;) (And if you're done - can you make one for p(x,y,z), or even one with an arbitrary number of integer inputs? What's the lowest degree polynomial you can think of, for the 2- and 3-variable cases? Is it possible to make a generalized set of polynomials, one for each number of inputs, so that if we encode some finite ordered list of integers, then *without knowing which polynomial we used* the final number will tell us how long the list was as well as letting us figure out the list's contents?)


I don't think I've tried the triangle ant problem before, so here goes (not sure if this is at all the right approach):
Since the ants start on an equilateral triangle and do the same things, just rotated 120 degrees from each other around the center, their locations will always form an equilateral triangle. Now suppose at some point they are on a triangle of side length x and they move a length of Δ. Then by the law of cosines the new side length should be \( \sqrt{(x-\Delta)^2 + \Delta^2 - \Delta(x-\Delta)} = \sqrt{x^2 - 3 \Delta x + 3 \Delta^2} \approx \sqrt{(x - \frac{3}{2}\Delta)^2} = x - \frac{3}{2}\Delta \).

So it looks like (as Δ approaches zero) the side length of the ants' triangle decreases 3/2 as fast as the ants themselves move. Since the side length decreases from the side length of the original triangle down to 0, the ants should each have to move 2/3 of that original side length.
 
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Jimmy:
\( \int_a^b\frac{\sqrt{x-a}\sqrt{b-x}}{x}\,dx=\left(\frac{a+b}{2}-\sqrt{ab}\right)\pi \)

Hope it's right because I cheated ;)
 
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On each corner of an equilateral triangle is an ant. Let's call each ant A, B and C.
They then start to crawl towards each other at the same speed. A crawls towards B, B crawls towards C, C crawls towards A.
How far have they crawled, in relation to the side length of the triangle, when they meet?
I like this one :)
I don't have an exact answer, but I guess I could work on that. Mathematica sort of sucks at solving differential equations, so it still might be possible to come up with an analytic solution (Mathematica couldn't handle what I gave it). So instead, numerically:

Code:
X1 = {1, 0}; X2 = {-1, 0}; X3 = {0, Sqrt[3]};
tri = ListPlot[{X1, X2, X3, X1}, AspectRatio -> 1, Axes -> False, 
   PlotRange -> {{-2, 2}, {-1, 3}}, Joined -> True];

sol = NDSolve[{
     x1'[t] == (x2[t] - x1[t])/
       Sqrt[(x2[t] - x1[t])^2 + (y2[t] - y1[t])^2],
     y1'[t] == (y2[t] - y1[t])/
       Sqrt[(x2[t] - x1[t])^2 + (y2[t] - y1[t])^2],
     x2'[t] == (x3[t] - x2[t])/
       Sqrt[(x3[t] - x2[t])^2 + (y3[t] - y2[t])^2],
     y2'[t] == (y3[t] - y2[t])/
       Sqrt[(x3[t] - x2[t])^2 + (y3[t] - y2[t])^2],
     x3'[t] == (x1[t] - x3[t])/
       Sqrt[(x1[t] - x3[t])^2 + (y1[t] - y3[t])^2],
     y3'[t] == (y1[t] - y3[t])/
       Sqrt[(x1[t] - x3[t])^2 + (y1[t] - y3[t])^2],
     x1[0] == X1[[1]], x2[0] == X2[[1]], x3[0] == X3[[1]],
     y1[0] == X1[[2]], y2[0] == X2[[2]], y3[0] == X3[[2]]
     }, {x1, x2, x3, y1, y2, y3}, {t, 0, 4/3}][[1]];

Show[
 tri,
 ParametricPlot[
  {{x1[t], y1[t]}, {x2[t], y2[t]}, {x3[t], y3[t]}} /. sol,
  {t, 0, 4/3}]
 ]

NIntegrate[Sqrt[
    ((x2[t] - x1[t])/Sqrt[(x2[t] - x1[t])^2 + (y2[t] - y1[t])^2])^2 +
     ((x2[t] - x1[t])/Sqrt[(x2[t] - x1[t])^2 + (y2[t] - y1[t])^2])^2
    ] /. sol, {t, 0, 4/3}]/2
A bit messy, but I'm not sure how to condense. This returns the attached image:
tripath.png
And gives a path length of 0.76109x, which disagrees with qq's value of 2/3.
 
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Jimmy:
\( \int_a^b\frac{\sqrt{x-a}\sqrt{b-x}}{x}\,dx=\left(\frac{a+b}{2}-\sqrt{ab}\right)\pi \)

Hope it's right because I cheated ;)
Chestey wins!

The correct answer is 2/3 though!
Ah, I agree now. Found a typo in my code. The integral should be:
Code:
NIntegrate[
  Sqrt[((x2[t] - x1[t])/
        Sqrt[(x2[t] - x1[t])^2 + (y2[t] - y1[t])^2])^2 + ((y2[t] - 
          y1[t])/Sqrt[(x2[t] - x1[t])^2 + (y2[t] - y1[t])^2])^2] /. 
   sol,
  {t, 0, 4/3}]/2
Which does give 0.666667x.
 
here's a problem (that i do not know how to solve, but I know the answer to)

A) An ant is at the origin of a number line. Every second, it randomly moves one unit left or right. If this continues infinitely, what is the probability that the ant returns to the origin at some point? If the probability is 1, what is the expected number of seconds that pass before the ant first returns to the origin?

B) An ant is at the origin of a rectangular coordinate plane. Every second, it randomly moves one unit left, right, up, or down. If this continues infinitely, what is the probability that the ant returns to the origin at some point? If the probability is 1, what is the expected number of seconds that pass before the ant first returns to the origin?

C) An ant is at the origin of a three dimensional space. Every second, it randomly moves one unit in a direction parallel to one of the three axes. If this continues infinitely, what is the probability that the ant returns to the origin at some point? If the probability is 1, what is the expected number of seconds that pass before the ant first returns to the origin?
 
here's a problem (that i do not know how to solve, but I know the answer to)

A) An ant is at the origin of a number line. Every second, it randomly moves one unit left or right. If this continues infinitely, what is the probability that the ant returns to the origin at some point? If the probability is 1, what is the expected number of seconds that pass before the ant first returns to the origin?

B) An ant is at the origin of a rectangular coordinate plane. Every second, it randomly moves one unit left, right, up, or down. If this continues infinitely, what is the probability that the ant returns to the origin at some point? If the probability is 1, what is the expected number of seconds that pass before the ant first returns to the origin?

C) An ant is at the origin of a three dimensional space. Every second, it randomly moves one unit in a direction parallel to one of the three axes. If this continues infinitely, what is the probability that the ant returns to the origin at some point? If the probability is 1, what is the expected number of seconds that pass before the ant first returns to the origin?

Here you go :)
 
Two plane figures are defined to be similar if one is able to make both figures perfectly overlap (congruent) by applying any or all of the following:
1. a rotation of the figure around a point,
2. a proportional enlargement or reduction, and
3. a linear translation.

A property of all similar figures is the constant ratio between corresponding linear parts. For example, if a and b are the lengths of two sides of a triangle, and A and B are the lengths of the corresponding two sides of a similar triangle, then A/a = B/b. This holds true because all of these values are linear values (measurements of length, instead of area or volume).

A circle, by definition, is the locus of points equidistant from a given point (the center). All circles are similar because one can apply an enlargement/reduction and a translation to overlap any two circles. Because all circles are similar, and because the radius, diameter, and circumference of a circle are all linear measures, any circle will have the same ratios between these linear values. Pi is defined to be the ratio of the circumference to the diameter in any circle, and since this ratio is always constant, pi is always constant.
 
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why is pi 3.14 or 22 over 7?

pi is actually the a proportion of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. you can look it up on wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

and like many poster have already stated. pi is not 3.14 or 22/7. it is: (click spoiler)
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989. . .
is a better approximation of Pi.
 
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