Bellman's lost in a forest problem

Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by btilly on Sunday September 16, 2018 @08:17PM (#18002145)

The optimal strategy in this case is known and is called the Zallager curve. See http://www.wardsattic.com/joomla/Download/WebPresentation/za... for a picture.

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Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by dunkelheit on Monday September 17, 2018 @03:06AM (#18003785)

Apparently you've mistyped the name - the curve is named after a Russian-Israeli mathematician Viktor Zalgaller.

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Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by rocqua on Monday September 17, 2018 @03:44AM (#18003925)

What happens for a 1 : 1.1 rectangle? it seems to me that that curve isn't optimal then. If so, what is the ratio for a rectangle where that curve becomes optimal.

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Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by pwiecz on Monday September 17, 2018 @05:07AM (#18004260)

If I'm reading http://wardsattic.com/joomla/Download/BellmanForestProblem.p... correctly, the ratio you're looking for is ≈ 2.0471.

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Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by gvb on Monday September 17, 2018 @08:53AM (#18005440)

That paper shows the value of visualization... I followed the Bellman Forest Problem link to the Wikipedia page on the Moser's Worm Problem[1] and it didn't do anything for me.

In Ward's paper, he summarized Moser's Worm Problem differently (p.7):

In 1966, Moser posed a related problem which roughly asks: “What's the best-shaped hammer for smashing one-inch worms?”

Great visualization!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moser%27s_worm_problem

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Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by rocqua on Monday September 17, 2018 @07:36AM (#18004896)

thanks for the link!

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Re:Bellman's lost in a forest problem by saagarjha on Monday September 17, 2018 @12:57AM (#18003314)

So you’re not too far off: the optimal value is 2.27.

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