Skip to main content

All Questions

Tagged with
7 votes
1 answer
836 views

More Catching of Cats

After my first puzzle on this theme was solved relatively quickly, here is a (trickier) follow up question in the same vein! The setup is similar - you are in a room with an infinite line of boxes, ...
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 2,477
19 votes
4 answers
2k views

Catching a Cat on an infinite Line

Upon entering a (very) large room, you are faced with an infinite line of cardboard boxes that are labeled, in order, by the nonnegative integers. In one of these boxes, a cat is hiding, but you do ...
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 2,477
21 votes
9 answers
3k views

Catch the invisible and omniscient thief

The thief has stolen two powerful artifacts: the Cloak of Invisibility and the Glasses of the Oracle. Now they're equipped with both. The cop at the bottom, not knowing where the thief is, is trying ...
Eric's user avatar
  • 6,536
4 votes
0 answers
203 views

Police and Thieves

I played this game when I was young, but cannot find it online. It is played on a checkers board (e.g. the black squares of a chess board) between two players P and T. The game goes as follows: P ...
user21820's user avatar
  • 1,236
2 votes
1 answer
417 views

1 lion, with a zebra and a fixed enclosure

Background See the puzzle Variant of lion and 100 zebras from @ghosts-in-the-code which remains unsolved years after it was posted. Several times in the last couple of years I've started to write up ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 3,885
26 votes
4 answers
2k views

Lions and Zebras on a Chess Board

The black knight is our lion chasing 8 white bishop zebras which can't capture. Can the zebras evade the lion forever, if team zebra positions all the pieces and has the first turn? Rules: The game ...
Bob's user avatar
  • 4,273
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Game against the Devil

While browsing through S.E you notice a spider crawl right out from under your keyboard! Startled, you twitch your hand and left clicked your mouse. You look up in shock as you notice that you just ...
Mark N's user avatar
  • 5,868
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

Precision Tag - can the lion win?

This is a spin-off motivated by Lopsy's interesting variant of Gamow's lion and zebras puzzle. It arose from a line of enquiry that tried to extend the vertical run past 5000km (or characterise the ...
Lawrence's user avatar
  • 7,939
38 votes
11 answers
4k views

Variant of lion and 100 zebras

Note: This problem remains unsolved, as of 19 April 2020, so do try it out. 400 rep bounty guaranteed for a correct answer This a variation of this question by @Gamow Suppose there are $100$ lions ...
ghosts_in_the_code's user avatar
27 votes
3 answers
2k views

The lion and the zebras II: The lion with millimeter-long claws

This is a variant of this excellent question. The rules of the lion-zebra hunger games are exactly the same: The lion plays a deadly game against a group of 100 zebras that takes place in the ...
Lopsy's user avatar
  • 7,984
52 votes
4 answers
6k views

The lion and the zebras

The lion plays a deadly game against a group of 100 zebras that takes place in the steppe (= an infinite plane). The lion starts in the origin with coordinates $(0,0)$, while the 100 zebras may ...
Gamow's user avatar
  • 45.7k
36 votes
6 answers
7k views

Chasing pirates

You are asleep on your boat on open sea. When you wake up you discover you have been robbed. A quick inspection of security cam footage reveals that the pirates who robbed you left your ship exactly ...
Johannes's user avatar
  • 4,400