Talk:3125: Snake-in-the-Box Problem - Revision history

New editor: humans are pretty cute

2026-02-17T20:45:30Z

humans are pretty cute

Utdtutyabthsc at 04:04, 17 February 2026

2026-02-17T04:04:22Z

Tom239 at 19:46, 14 October 2025

2025-10-14T19:46:41Z

92.17.62.87 at 20:23, 1 September 2025

2025-09-01T20:23:34Z

88.129.22.189 at 07:46, 1 September 2025

2025-09-01T07:46:50Z

GorillaWarfare at 06:57, 10 August 2025

2025-08-10T06:57:32Z

IIVQ: wrong example

2025-08-09T06:01:35Z

wrong example

82.13.184.33 at 11:12, 8 August 2025

2025-08-08T11:12:04Z

102.117.215.0: Improved interactive comics

2025-08-08T08:21:10Z

Improved interactive comics

102.117.215.0: Conclusion

2025-08-08T08:19:56Z

Conclusion

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:45, 17 February 2026
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	: Humans aren't cute animals (mostly), so I propose a variant of the problem called the Chinese Red Panda Room [[Special:Contributions/177.12.49.23\|177.12.49.23]] 22:38, 6 August 2025 (UTC)		: Humans aren't cute animals (mostly), so I propose a variant of the problem called the Chinese Red Panda Room [[Special:Contributions/177.12.49.23\|177.12.49.23]] 22:38, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
		+	:: humans are pretty cute. [[User:New editor\|New editor]] ([[User talk:New editor\|talk]]) 20:45, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

	Interesting. Just a few days ago I was investigating a very similar idea (looking at a path that transitioned between adjacent ''faces'' of a polyhedron, which was effectively going from vertex to connected vertex upon that chosen polyhedron's ''dual''), but for the opposite reason, i.e. looking for the paths that actually maximised proximity (along the path) between neighbouring faces (upon the polyhedra), so that it actually minimised the search back/forth along the path-chain to establish what value the adjacent polyhedron faces (beyond the ones automatically at ±1 positions on the chain) inherited.		Interesting. Just a few days ago I was investigating a very similar idea (looking at a path that transitioned between adjacent ''faces'' of a polyhedron, which was effectively going from vertex to connected vertex upon that chosen polyhedron's ''dual''), but for the opposite reason, i.e. looking for the paths that actually maximised proximity (along the path) between neighbouring faces (upon the polyhedra), so that it actually minimised the search back/forth along the path-chain to establish what value the adjacent polyhedron faces (beyond the ones automatically at ±1 positions on the chain) inherited.

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:04, 17 February 2026
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	n=2: Snakes on a plane. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210\|64.201.132.210]] 16:47, 7 August 2025 (UTC)		n=2: Snakes on a plane. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210\|64.201.132.210]] 16:47, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
		+	:it makes so much sense and i hate that fact. --[[User:Utdtutyabthsc\|Utdtutyabthsc]] ([[User talk:Utdtutyabthsc\|talk]]) 04:04, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

	the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)		the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:46, 14 October 2025
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	I suspect the squirrel fur + hamper + spark implies something electrochemical, though I haven't quite made the connection between the animal and the box. {{unsigned ip\|88.129.22.189\|07:46, 1 September 2025}}		I suspect the squirrel fur + hamper + spark implies something electrochemical, though I haven't quite made the connection between the animal and the box. {{unsigned ip\|88.129.22.189\|07:46, 1 September 2025}}
		+
		+
		+	I've found a length-373 snake in 10 dimensions. The previous record of 370 as listed on Wikipedia dates to 2012.
		+
		+	I started working on Snake-in-the-Box in August after xkcd #3125 introduced me to the problem. I'm grateful to Randall Munroe for calling it to my attention. I intend to keep working on it.
		+
		+	I described my results in a paper available at https://zenodo.org/records/17344872 which includes C code anyone can compile and run to validate the length-373 snake. doi:10.5281/zenodo.17344872
		+
		+	If you know anyone working in graph theory who can advise me on how to get my results recognized in a trusted forum (or who would even just like to compare notes about the Snake-in-the-Box problem), please let me know. My email address is
		+	in my paper.
		+	[[User:Tom239\|Tom239]] ([[User talk:Tom239\|talk]]) 19:46, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 I suppose Randall doesn't consider [[beetles]] cute, or else [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Wittgenstein's_beetle philosophy of language] would be included. [[Special:Contributions/137.25.230.78|137.25.230.78]] 23:15, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
 : that's a great example [[Special:Contributions/177.12.49.23|177.12.49.23]] 01:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
-: very nice one, reminds me of the story of the bug (moth) and debugging in computer science
+: very nice one, reminds me of the story of the bug (moth) and debugging in computer science {{unsigned ip|88.129.22.189|07:46, 1 September 2025}}
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-I suspect the squirrel fur + hamper + spark implies something electrochemical, though I haven't quite made the connection between the animal and the box.
+I suspect the squirrel fur + hamper + spark implies something electrochemical, though I haven't quite made the connection between the animal and the box. {{unsigned ip|88.129.22.189|07:46, 1 September 2025}}

@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 I suppose Randall doesn't consider [[beetles]] cute, or else [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Wittgenstein's_beetle philosophy of language] would be included. [[Special:Contributions/137.25.230.78|137.25.230.78]] 23:15, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
 : that's a great example [[Special:Contributions/177.12.49.23|177.12.49.23]] 01:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
 In simultaneous interpreting, humans are the cute animal in the box. {{unsigned|DrInterpreter|07:35, 7 August 2025 (UTC)}}
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 In the middle of the tree "wrong" examples, is the vertex leading from head to tail also a "wrong" vertex and should be coloured red? [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 06:01, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

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 :It's not that hard to imagine: if you were to try a brute force search it would take time that's exponential in the path length, which itself is exponential in d. There are evidently methods to do it slightly better, but not enough to make solving d=9 feasible yet. [[User:Zmatt|Zmatt]] ([[User talk:Zmatt|talk]]) 10:03, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
 :To give an impression of the rate at which these get solved: d=6 was solved in 1988, d=7 in 1996, d=8 in 2014. [[User:Zmatt|Zmatt]] ([[User talk:Zmatt|talk]]) 10:32, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
 I would argue that computer science has one as well with the China room problem. [[User:Ctinsman|Ctinsman]] ([[User talk:Ctinsman|talk]]) 22:14, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:01, 9 August 2025
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	Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world {{unsigned ip\|102.117.215.0\|08:21, 8 August 2025 (UTC)}}		Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world {{unsigned ip\|102.117.215.0\|08:21, 8 August 2025 (UTC)}}
		+
		+	In the middle of the tree "wrong" examples, is the vertex leading from head to tail also a "wrong" vertex and should be coloured red? [[User:IIVQ\|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ\|talk]]) 06:01, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:12, 8 August 2025
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	the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)		the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

−	~~<h1>~~ Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world~~</h1>~~	+	Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world {{unsigned ip\|102.117.215.0\|08:21, 8 August 2025 (UTC)}}

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:21, 8 August 2025
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	the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)		the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

−	== Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world ==	+	<h1> Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world</h1>
−	~~== Headline text ==~~
−
−	~~== Headline text ==~~
−	==

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:19, 8 August 2025
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	the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)		the comic number 3125 is 5^5 [[Special:Contributions/96.77.127.105\|96.77.127.105]] 18:26, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
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		+	== Conclusion: we better have no snakes in the world ==
		+	== Headline text ==
		+
		+	== Headline text ==
		+	==