SOLUTION: I am not sure it must be under this category, as I don't know the solution: A research team of students in the Physics department of University of South Carolina has been watchi

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Question 1039089: I am not sure it must be under this category, as I don't know the solution:
A research team of students in the Physics department of University of South Carolina has been watching the movement of a flea for 60 minutes without interruption.
Each student continuously watched the movement for exactly one minute and during this time, each of them saw the flea move by 1 meter during his 1-minute observation. What is the minimum and maximum distance which the flea could have moved during the 60 minutes of observation? (distance, not displacement)
I believe the source of this problem is the Kvant magazine.
Found 2 solutions by solver91311, ikleyn:
Answer by solver91311(24713) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!


There are 60 minutes in 60 minutes and the flea moved 1 meter each of those minutes. So the distance moved, the maximum distance moved, and the minimum distance moved are all the same.

John

My calculator said it, I believe it, that settles it

Answer by ikleyn(52780) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
I am not sure it must be under this category, as I don't know the solution:
A research team of students in the Physics department of University of South Carolina has been watching the movement of a flea for 60 minutes without interruption.
Each student continuously watched the movement for exactly one minute and during this time, each of them saw the flea move by 1 meter during his 1-minute observation. What is the minimum and maximum distance which the flea could have moved during the 60 minutes of observation? (distance, not displacement)
I believe the source of this problem is the Kvant magazine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

What if the flea moves along a circle?

Along a spiral? 

What if the flea moves 1 meter forward during 1 minute while exactly one student watches the move,

and then it flies 1 meter back during another 1 minute while another student watches its move?

Did I violate the condition?

The condition, as it was formulated, leaves a room for various/different scenarios/speculations.

While the good/right formulation should not leave a room for it.

One more question: is the distance measured "along the path" or simply between the starting and ending points?

One more gap/margin in the formulation.

Again, good/right formulation should not leave a room for it.

And the last notice: a good reference (to a "Kvant magazine" in this case) should be more definitive.

(I have all "Kvants" saved as pdf-files from 1970 to 2011 in my comp).