h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Has both its entrance and its exit on the outside of the maze.

Has all its walls connected - ie, you could trace an unbroken path along the top of the walls, from any point on a wall to any other point on a wall in the maze."

If the maze has an exit that's not the same as the entrance all the walls cannot be connected. You can see this in the illustration. The path from entrance to exit bisects the maze.

Maybe I was suppose to assume this, but I think adding "ignoring the gaps made by exits/entrances" would enhance this description of the simple maze.

If the exit and entrance were not on the outside, where would they be? Floating in the air? Underground?

Two dimensional? You mean flat, like a drawing on paper? Nothing like this picture in fact.

Two dimensional as in not more than one floor.

I don't understand two dimensional to mean that.

That's one storey.

It's a two dimensional maze because only the 'flat' dimensions count. You can't, or aren't supposed to, solve it by moving along the Z-axis, only the X and Y. With these restrictions it doesn't matter if it's flat on paper in a puzzle book or laid out with hedges in a garden.

The 'exit'/goal could be in the middle, but if it were you'd need a tunnel or bridge if you wanted to get to the rest of the world. Making the maze 3D.

Or the exit could be Doctor Who's Tardis, located in the center of the maze... making the maze 4-dimensional?

Well, it depends on how the Tardis actually travels, but if we start with a 2D maze, and only use the Tardis to get to points in the maze (including the entrance/exit) at some point in time, and ignore the "path" travelled, the Tardis would just make it 3D, not the regular third dimention though.

I pointed out in Peer Review that the methods work without assuming the maze is simple (though we'll keep the bit about no traps). We need some restriction for the "hand on wall" to work, but then we only need the first together with the second OR third condition.

Plus the "hand on wall" technique isn't particularly slow except when compared to cheating, whereas the article give the impression that it is.

I remember back to an old episode of interceptor, and when interceptor and the "man in blue" was trying to find the key in the middle of a maze, the Helicopter poilet "Mikey" told the interceptor where to go, while the "man in blue" had to listen to heresay from people already in the maze. Then the interceptor ambushed him, how we laughed!!!

I don't know what this story has got to do with anything, it's just a bunch of old toot really!!!

I loved the three approaches to solving a maze that were used by the Goodies in a TV programme.

Tim Brooke Taylor: conscientiously entering maze, goes round and round in circles, gets hopelessly lost, bursts into tears, cries for mummy.

Bill Oddie: gets tractor with hedge-ripping-up apparatus on the front, goes "Wha-Hey!" and tears straight through it in a straight line, ripping up hedges as he goes;

Graeme Garden (the scientific approach). Reasons that if the point of the exercise is to get from Point A on one side of the maze to an exit point B on the other side, then the rules do not explicitly state you have to enter the maze at all. Therefore he walks right round the side from Point A to point B, neatly avoiding all that tricky, inefficent and time-consuming stuff non the inside!

Nice, I like the scientific approach, but wanton destruction makes Bill's the best.

That was a good quote Bagpuss, I may have to use it sometime!!!

I prefer option four:

1) You get a helecopter, drop a bit of meat in the centre of the maze and then you release a dog at the enterance to the maze.

2) Follow dog