xkcd #3125: Snake-in-the-Box Problem
Title text:
Chemistry grad students have been spotted trying to lure campus squirrels into laundry hampers in the hope that it sparks inspiration.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3125/
I’d expect something around ~200 for n=9 and ~400 for n=10, but I imagine this is too big to be brute forced by raw computing
Some lower bounds have been established: https://oeis.org/A099155
Wow, it already lists the xkcd in the links section. I have a feeling that snake is gonna bite its tail soon.
Some trivial bounds: F(n-1) + 1 <= F(n) <= F(n-1) * 2 + 1.
Also F(n) <= 2^(n-1)
I’d think that it’s not “too much to be brute forced”, but probably no one has thrown enough resources at that recently
With each additional dimension, the amount of possible combinations grows exponentially. Without serious optimization efforts, computation requirements get prohibitive very, very fast