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King's Maths School

Challenge 445: The Snark Hunt

A fun puzzle from KCLMS student Alex M!

(a) A snark starts at 0 on a number line. Every second it teleports a distance of N along the number line, where N is an unknown positive integer.

Every second, you choose a point on the number line. If you choose the snark's current location, you have caught it.

Can you come up with a strategy that will eventually catch the snark?

(b) As above, but now the snark starts at an unknown point S on the number line, where S is a positive integer.

Submit your solution

Please do send in your solution to this problem to weeklymaths@kcl.ac.uk You can scan or photograph your written work, or type your solutions. If this is your first weekly maths challenge solution, please include your year group and the name of the school you attend. We'll be happy to provide feedback on your solution, assuming that you are in year 11 or below. If you are older than this, we hope you enjoy trying the problems and reviewing your solutions against those we publish on the website.