This is an old one:

A room has dimensions 30 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 12 feet high.
A spider is sitting in the middle of one small wall of a room, 1 foot up from the floor.
A fly is sitting in the middle of the opposite small wall of the room, 1 foot down from the ceiling.
If the fly does not move, what is the shortest distance the spider must crawl to capture the fly?
.Assume: this is an "ideal" room without doors or windows; the spider can crawl anywhere on the floor, ceiling, and walls of the room.

My bottle of stella and i reckon its 42 ft but we could be just p****d.

my tab of acid and i reckon...

i would get out of that rather rectangular room...
but hang on its an 'ideal' room with no windows or doors! and i'm claustrophobic. heeeeelp me i'm trapped!!!:help:

but we could be just trippin'...

I got 42ft as well but are they in the same room?

Sorry, as the Actress said to the impotent Bishop: Please try again.

Hope I haven't spoiled your 'trip' Tina - what with all the Wolf Spiders about recently - just think of Miss Muffet.

And gaZaa, change your brand of beer.

Robert - yup - in the same room.

Now, I'm back to Travolta and Blow Out.

Your question asked"what is the shortest distance the spider must crawl?"The implication being that the spider must crawl all the way.Dropping by its thread not allowed!
My empty bottle of stella just looks sad now.

Some spiders dangle on their threads and let the wind blow them to another solid object,where they carry on their web building,so perhaps the distance is just over 30 ft.But hey!there are no windows are there,so no wind,s**t.

Sorry Gazaa - no threads allowed -except the one we're in.

And PLEASE change your brand of beer.

Why should i change my beer?There are no flys on stella,i had a pet frog called stella,hic.

Can you repeat the question,thanks

40. Keep trying...

Imagine a house with three rooms in the cellar. Each room has a light. There are no light switches in any of the rooms, and there ain't no windows neither.

Take a stroll up the stairs to the loft, where you find three switches controlling the lights in the cellar. Your task is to work out which switch operates which light BUT once you leave the loft you MAY NOT RETURN. You can visit TWO of the cellar rooms only (otherwise you could work it out easily - duh!). No room, nor the light from any room, is visible from any other room.

No one can help you, and you can't use any objects to assist.

Come on and tell me how.

Turn two two lights on.

Wait 5 mins.

Turn one light off.

Having been armed with the following information

1) 1 hot bulb
2) 1 cold bulb
3) 1 lit bulb

you can determine which switch is connected to what.

Go down to the cellar.

Feel which of the two rooms have hot unlit light bulb.

You only need to visit 2 room to deduct which is which.


As for the spider one - it is dabolical that these guys on acid and Alcohol are thinking straight. Did that make sense? :?

38.73

If it correct, I will explain.

You're not correct. The answer is 40. Promise.

But well done on the other one.

mmm....

Explain how you arrive at 40?

I've messed up somewhere.

Length wise the distance is 6 + 32 + 6 = 42
Height wise the distance is 12 - 1 - 1 = 10

square root of ((42 * 42)-(10 * 10)) is 40.7921561087423

Waxy chuff is correct.

"Unfold" the room into a flat surface: the small walls are 12x12 feet. The shortest distance D is then the straight line joining the spider and the fly.
You then get a ‘3, 4, 5’, right-triangle with a factor of 8 ie. 24, 32 and 40.
In full:
D = sqrt[(1+30+1)^2 + (6+12+6)^2]
= sqrt[32^2 + 24^2]
= sqrt[1,024 + 576]
= sqrt[1,600]
= 40

I don't understand :-S