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From: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: 5 boxes
Message-ID: <1708@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Feb-86 11:56:30 EST
Article-I.D.: jhunix.1708
Posted: Mon Feb  3 11:56:30 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Feb-86 08:29:07 EST
References: <1146@ecsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_akaa@jhunix.ARPA (Ken Arromdee)
Distribution: net
Organization: TARDIS Repairs, Inc.
Lines: 19

It's too easy to prove the problem impossible.  There are three boxes with
five sides.  For a box with five sides, one end of the line must be inside,
because otherwise every time your line goes in it also goes out, which can
only cross an even number of edges.

There are 3 five-sided boxes, requiring 3 ends of the line--obviously im-
possible.

(Unless you cheat by drawing a line through a corner, or putting the whole
figure on a torus).
-- 
"We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
socialism, because socialism is defunct.  It dies all by iself.  The bad thing
is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?" -Fidel Castro

Kenneth Arromdee
BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS
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