There was a similar discussion last December (message from Henry Baker) about racing around triangle, or a square in the case of baseball. The reference given was: Carroza, Davide; Johnson, Stewart; Morgan, Frank. "Baserunner's Optimal Path". Math. Intelligencer 32, 1 (2010), 10-15. http://www.springerlink.com/content/t7q081384758kl5l/fulltext.pdf Best, Sébastien On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 03:17, Veit Elser <ve10@cornell.edu> wrote:
[...] I probably learned more about physics playing this game than I did in physics class. The continuum version suggests some interesting optimization problems that I have never seen worked out. For example, starting at rest on the edge of a circular lake what is the fastest way to run around the lake and arrive, again at rest, at the starting point all the while constraining the acceleration magnitude to be less than 1g?