Problem: The Monk And The Bridges

q261

In this case, I give a rough plan of a river with an island and five bridges. On one side of the river is a monastery, and on the other side is seen a monk in the foreground. Now, the monk has decided that he will cross every bridge once, and only once, on his return to the monastery. This is, of course, quite easy to do, but on the way, he thought to himself, "I wonder how many different routes there are from which I might have selected." Could you have told him? That is the puzzle. Take your pencil and trace out a route that will take you once over all the five bridges. Then trace out the second route, then a third, and see if you can count all the variations. You will find that the difficulty is twofold: you have to avoid dropping routes on the one hand and counting the same routes more than once on the other.

Solutions: 1


Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

Github:
bookofproofs
non-Github:
@H-Dudeney


References

Project Gutenberg

  1. Dudeney, H. E.: "Amusements in Mathematics", The Authors' Club, 1917

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this edition or online at http://www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.