Saturday, February 23, 2013

Toward a Target

You can imagine an arrow in flight, toward a target. For the arrow to reach the target, the arrow must first travel half of the overall distance from the starting point to the target. Next, the arrow must travel half of the remaining distance.

For example, if the starting distance was 10m, the arrow first travels 5m, then 2.5m.

If you extend this concept further, you can imagine the resulting distances getting smaller and smaller. Will the arrow ever reach the target?

 
Puzzle Answer

Answer:

Yes.
Since the arrow does indeed hit the target, it must be true that 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1.
This is because the sum of an infinite series can be a finite number.

No comments:

Post a Comment