Friday Math Problem
I am going to start posting clever math problems every Friday. These are in the style of the high school Math Olympiad problems, and are intended for recreational purposes. I think that this is a great idea because a) it will save me the trouble of having to come up with original content to get you through the weekend, and b) you might get smarter! I know, I know, this isn't fair to those of you who went to lower and middle school in the United States, but look at this as a productive challenge. And also, I'd like to mention that googling the answer is completely unethical, and goes against the very spirit of clever math problems.
The three frogs problem: Three frogs are placed on three vertices of a square. Every minute, one frog leaps over another frog, in such a way that the leapee is at the midpoint of the line segment whose endpoints are the starting and ending position of the leaper. Will a frog ever occupy the vertex of the square that was originally unoccupied? Show a proof.


3 Comments:
so how does this work? do we email you our solutions and you post the name of the smartest one of us next week? or do we put them in the comments? i require rules!
I haven't thought of that. I guess just post them into the comments. I doubt any of these would require the use of Latex.
the answer is NO and I am sending a you a proof in email.
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