From ssenate@mindless.com Tue Jun 05 22:19:51 2001 Newsgroups: rec.puzzles Subject: Chris Manson's Maze? From: Salt Of The Earth Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 02:19:51 GMT OK. I read the solutions about the hidden door to room 17 in room 29. But my solution went a little differently. I apologize if someone has already thought of this one before, but the key is the light switch in room 8. What does it do? It reverses rooms 12 and 28. All doors marked 12 now go to 28, and all doors marked 28 go to 12. [Directions: Up and Dn] or is it [Directions: Up and On] in room 29? So, using the light switch to reverse rooms 12 and 28, here is my solution: 1-26-30-42-4-29-8- [Flip the switch] -*28-45-*12-39-4-15-37-20-1. Sixteen steps, inclucing flipping the light switch. Does this affect the QUESTION/ANSWER solutions? I have no idea. I never got that far. "Even I get lost. It changes - sometimes slowly, imperceptibly ... sometimes suddenly." So, if you flip the switch, it doesn't just turn on the light, but it also switches the virtually identical rooms 12 and 28. Alternatively, if this fits the QUESTION/ANSWER solution better, the group could split up at room 29, some going to room 2, the rest to room 8. Those in room 2 wait for those in room 8 to flip the switch, and all go through the doors marked 12 which take them instead to room 28. Then, exiting room 45 via the 28 door takes them to room 12. From jmb184@frontiernet.net Wed Jun 06 16:33:01 2001 Newsgroups: rec.puzzles Subject: Re: Chris Manson's Maze? From: jmb184@frontiernet.net (John Bailey) Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 20:33:01 GMT On Wed, 06 Jun 2001 02:19:51 GMT, Salt Of The Earth wrote: >OK. I read the solutions about the hidden door to room 17 in room 29. (snipped) >So, using the light switch to reverse rooms 12 and 28, here is my >solution: >1-26-30-42-4-29-8- [Flip the switch] -*28-45-*12-39-4-15-37-20-1. >Sixteen >steps, inclucing flipping the light switch. There is some evidence but none of it seems overwhelming. BTW, using reasoning like that, the shortest path is 1 --> 26 --> 36 --> 45 --> 19 --> 31 --> 21 --> 1. quoting from: From: Chris McManus Subject: Re: The Maze revisited John, Since you are something of a guru on Maze theory, I'd like to register with you my primary frustration with the Maze solution, namely, the "shortest >path" from 1 to 45 and back. My shortest path (with no repetition of rooms) is: 1 --> 26 --> 36 --> 45 --> 19 --> 31 --> 21 --> 1. This is only 7 steps, not the 16 that my namesake, the author of Maze, claims is minimal. My solution depends on only one general logical deduction: Several of the rooms have unnumbered exits, but the destinations of these exits can all be deduced. For example, Room 36 has four exits, of which only two are numbered (7 and 16). But four rooms (7, 16, 26, and 45) have exits marked 36. Therefore the two unmarked exits in room 36 must lead to rooms 26 >and 45. By similar logic, the unmarked exit in room 21 must lead to room 1. Chris (end of quote) Since rec.puzzles seems to have minimum interest in the Maze, check out http://www.frontiernet.net/~jmb184/maze/ If you don't mind, I will add your post to the correspondence collection. John From ssenate@mindless.com Wed Jun 06 22:09:15 2001 Newsgroups: rec.puzzles Subject: Re: Chris Manson's Maze? From: Salt Of The Earth Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 02:09:15 GMT John Bailey wrote: > >So, using the light switch to reverse rooms 12 and 28, here is my > >solution: > >1-26-30-42-4-29-8- [Flip the switch] -*28-45-*12-39-4-15-37-20-1. > >Sixteen > >steps, inclucing flipping the light switch. > If you don't mind, I will add your post to the correspondence > collection. > > John Thank you. I consider it somewhat of an honor. It shows that you believe my light switch theory has some minimal amount of merit to it. That was what I really wasn't sure of.