Chasing Puppies (CCCG 2020)
Channel: Jeff Erickson
Date: 2020-08-08

This is an unedited recording of my Ferran Hurtado Memorial Lecture at the 32nd Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry.

CCCG 2020 web page: http://vga.usask.ca/cccg2020/
Remembering Ferran: http://ferranhurtado.blogspot.com/

Abstract: I will describe a topological solution to the following puzzle, which Michael Biro posed as an open problem at CCCG 2013. A human and a puppy find themselves at different points on a walking trail, which is a simple closed curve in the plane. The human and puppy can see each other from anywhere on the trail, but they cannot leave the trial. The puppy always moves as quickly as possible to decrease its distance to the human. Can the human catch the puppy? (Yes!)

This is joint work with Irina Kostitsyna, Maarten Löffler, Tillman Miltzow, Jérôme Urhausen, and Jordi Vermeulen.