On 01/04/2014 9:59 AM, Roger Hui wrote:
There is a somewhat related anecdote. Two trains are 100 miles apart on a
straight track, facing each other and travel at 25 miles per hour toward
the other. At the same time, a fly flies at 100 miles an hour from one
train to the other and, when it reaches the other train, turns around
instantaneously and flies toward the other train, and so on. When the
trains crash, what is the total distance the fly flew?
There is an easy way and a harder way to compute the answer. Someone posed
the question to John von Neumann. After a moment, he answered, 200 miles.
Correct. Now, Johnny, how did you figure it out?
I summed the series.
snip----------
Alfred E Neumann of mad magazine did it differently. the trains took 2 hours to
crash
so the fly went 200m miles.
Don Kelly
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