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riddles >> what happened >> Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
(Message started by: alien2 on Feb 16th, 2014, 4:45am)

Title: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 16th, 2014, 4:45am
A gymnast wakes up half-naked at the beginning of a narrow corridor, clueless about how he got there. He is wearing his sweatpants and sneakers. He observes the corridor while standing in place. The corridor is well illuminated by a cylindrical and 1 km long neon light centered in the middle of the ceiling. The corridor is in the shape of a rectangular cuboid, its width 80 cm and height 3 m. The concrete walls and ceiling are painted in pitch black without any hue. The solid wood flooring has identical floorboards that are parallel to the walls. The floorboards are rectangular, their width 20 cm and length 1 m. There is no opening near him, rather a narrow wall.

Next the gymnast hears a deep voice: "I am your mysterious captor. You were brought here for my amusement. I am continuously monitoring you with many smallest wireless spy cameras. You are on the holodeck, a simulated reality facility, where standard physical laws apply. There is plenty of oxygen and gravity is as on Earth. You must pass all obstacles or you will meet your demise. This is your 1st obstacle. You have to travel 1 km long corridor, after which distance you'll reach a closed door that leads to the 2nd obstacle. But I must warn you that 2 m long part of this corridor's floor is booby-trapped by chain of bombs. Since I'm trying to mend my ways, I will give you three clues.

  • The bombs are not close to the door.
  • You must be sure when the closest set of bombs is 5 m in front of you.
  • There is nothing else you could notice or use.

Good luck to you."

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by gotit on Feb 16th, 2014, 7:11am
[hide]He used his sneakers to detect the booby trap. And then his gymnastics skills and neon light to reach the other end of the corridor.[/hide]

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 16th, 2014, 8:26am
I should've mentioned in the riddle that the sneakers are not heavy enough to set off a bomb, so I guess anti-tank mines would be a better choice.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by gotit on Feb 16th, 2014, 9:23am
Can the [hide]floorboards be detached?[/hide] If yes, they can be used to detect the booby trap.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 17th, 2014, 4:01am

on 02/16/14 at 09:23:20, gotit wrote:
Can the [hide]floorboards be detached?[/hide]

No.

This might be one of my "logical" riddles. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by rloginunix on Feb 17th, 2014, 6:42am
"The Vitruvian Man" (by Leonardo Da Vinci)?

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 17th, 2014, 12:26pm
I don't follow. Please try to explain.  

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by BNC on Feb 17th, 2014, 1:56pm

on 02/16/14 at 08:26:25, alien2 wrote:
I should've mentioned in the riddle that the sneakers are not heavy enough to set off a bomb, so I guess anti-tank mines would be a better choice.


So the challenge is to detect the bombs, and not to avoid being hurt by them?

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by rloginunix on Feb 17th, 2014, 8:48pm
80 cm is narrow enough to do the Vitruvian Man - the gymnast can spread his/her legs and arms and push them against the walls so that there's no weight on the floor.

This is similar to how the rock climbers do it. Except that they move up, vertically, while here the gymnast can move horizontally.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by towr on Feb 17th, 2014, 10:47pm
I doubt anyone can do that for several hundred meters though.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 18th, 2014, 4:07am
BNC: The last thing the gymnast wants to do is to set off a bomb.  

Rloginunix: To move like the Vitruvian Man is the part of the answer. But as towr said, the gymnast can't move like that through most of the corridor.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by Grimbal on Feb 18th, 2014, 6:55am
Hm... I don't suppose he has a bowling ball with him, does he?

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 18th, 2014, 8:04am
Nah.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by rloginunix on Feb 19th, 2014, 1:26pm
Lets eliminate the obvious then.

Does the gymnast have the functioning mine sweeping equipment? If he/she does then the answer is obvious.

If not - the answer should depend on the set off mechanism - pressure, trip wire, motion detection.

Trip wire seems to be the simplest. The gymnast sees it, walks up to it and covers the required distance (5+2=7 meters to be sure) the Vitruvian Man style.

With the other types - with the absence of visual clues - detection without the explosion seems rather difficult to achieve.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 19th, 2014, 2:42pm
No trip wire, no minesweeping equipment, no nothing.

I'm starting to think that the answer is really dumb. Oh well. :-[

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by Grimbal on Feb 19th, 2014, 4:25pm
Can the neon be detached?

Is the neon solid enough and a proper shape to hang to it?

Is the Kobayashi Maru trick an option?

Is the corridor actually vertical?

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 20th, 2014, 7:22am
No.

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by rloginunix on Feb 20th, 2014, 8:54am
Your previous riddle ("No Way Out") was solved with the Space Time approach - separate the second pack of wolves from the original group in space at the same time.

May be it will also work here - the booby trapped section of the floor is in another corridor - generating holograms is cheap. The corridor where the gymnast is is absolutely safe - he/she has to simply walk 1000 meters to the first door?

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by alien2 on Feb 20th, 2014, 9:29am
Nope.

Brace yourself for the following answer: [hide]The bombs are 5 m from the narrow wall at the beginning of the corridor.[/hide]  

:-[

Title: Re: Corridors, Tunnels & Chutes: Obstacle 1
Post by JiNbOtAk on Feb 24th, 2014, 7:34pm
[quote author=alien2 link=board=riddles_whathappened;num=1392554711;start=0#14 date=02/19/14 at 14:42:45]I'm starting to think that the answer is really dumb. Oh well. :-[/quote]

Oh well, what else is new? ::)



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