A Mathless Math Puzzle

hess bug puzzle

Richard Hess posed this problem in the Spring 1980 issue of Pi Mu Epsilon Journal. At noon on Monday, a bug departs the upper left corner, X, of a p × q rectangle and crawls within the rectangle to the diagonally opposite corner, Y, arriving there at 6 p.m. He sleeps there until noon on Tuesday, when he sets out again for X, crawling along another path within the rectangle and reaching X at 6 p.m. Prove that at some time on Tuesday the bug was no farther than p from his location at the same time on Monday.

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