any<\/em> finite courtyard, if the king started sufficiently close to the circle, it was possible to catch him. And so the smallest courtyard from which he was guaranteed escape was\u2026 infinitely large!<\/p>\nSolver Al Shaheen reimagined the puzzle to make it a little more interesting. Suppose the king did indeed start in one of the four corners and that you correctly guessed which corner he was in. How much faster than you would the king need to be to guarantee an escape?<\/p>\n
In this case, you again might make a beeline for the corner to trap the king at one of two tangent points. From there, you’d have to guess which of the two tangent points the king was at and then approach him as he worked his way around the circumference of the circle of light.<\/p>\n
Based on last week’s puzzle, it’s clear that I’m intrigued by these sorts of pursuit puzzles where one party (the pursuer or the pursued) is missing information about the other. I hope to \u201ccircle\u201d back to this again with another puzzle in the not-to-distant future.<\/p>\n
Want more puzzles?<\/h2>\n
Well, aren’t you lucky? There’s a whole book full of the best puzzles from this column and some never-before-seen head-scratchers. It’s called \u201cThe Riddler,\u201d and it’s in stores now!<\/p>\n
Want to submit a riddle?<\/h2>\n
Email Zach Wissner-Gross at riddlercolumn@gmail.com.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n