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

Unless your friend is at a part of Q you don't know about. I got separated from a friend at the changing of the guards and it took me two hours to find her at a gate to Buckingham I didn't know existed. By that time she was choosing a park bench for the night.

And if both are carying mobile phones and can ring each other to explain which gate they're waiting at, resolution of the problem is simpler still...

(Q: how many of these mathematical problems were first laid down in eras that predated modern technology, or is this not the point...)

Neither of us had phones, being from out of country and too poor to even pay for our own lodgings...

I was just going to mention the phone thing

But still what a fascinating entry...

I know the phone thing kinda spoils it, but you can't always rely on modern technology...

Had a similar problem once: I called my friend one day (from my place to his. We did`t have cellphones.) and asked him if he would meet me on the half-way, as we often would do. He agreed, but neither of us realized we hadn`t really agreed on witch way we should take before we were allready on the way. You see, there were two ways to get from the one house to the other. One way went along the road and the other through the woods.

So there we were, walking towards eachothers home pondering on wether the other one was taking the same path as oneself. We had naturally passed eachother on the separate paths and had ended up at the other`s place having seen nothing of eachother.

Now, of course, we had to turn around and head home. Still with the same chance of not meeting. Only now we knew whitch way the other one had taken before. And with a little knowledge of eachother we could knock down a fairly logic deduction on how to make the chances of not meeting this time lesser. I can only speak for myself, of course.

I thought like this:
I could go the other way back hoping to find him there.
It occured to me that he`d be thinking just same thing.
I could also go the same way home, assuming he would try to look for me along the way he knew I first came.
It then occured to me that it would be more likely if he assumed this same thing about me.

Therefore I went with the first option, going back the other way, and
we met.

I have this very same problem whenever I go to the supermarket with my wife. I, by and large, tag along as the lift and perhaps for a little morale support. If I can, I'll skive off and hang around the magazine/book section; she, in the meantime, goes off and gets on with the whole business of shopping. After about an hour, it occurs to me that she might well have left the building and got a taxi home... Do I go find her? Will she come and find me? Will the supermarket manager have to evict us both (assuming the place isn't 24 hours, which presents a whole other problem!). What to do?



"When women are depressed, they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking." - Elayne Boosler

The Apprentice