Breadstick Puzzle

My hunch would be that finger width doesn't really make much difference, unless we are dealing with elephants trying to share one french bread? Would be intriguing to find it actually does. ^^

Finger width w can be simulated with zero width fingers that cannot go nearer than w/2 to a side or nearer than w to another finger. In practice playing nearer than w (minus a tiny delta) to a side is not profitable because at w-delta nobody can get between you and the side anyway.

It is clear that, when there are enough players, the last few cannot fit their fingers on the stick, so having a finger width means at some n players the first player HAS to play w-delta from the stick end, and each subsequent player has to play at most w-delta from the nearest finger or stick end. Therefore having width puts a limit on the maximum players AND I think it also means that with each extra player the first player has to edge closer to the stick end than would be ideal with zero widths.

Originally posted by iamatiger
Aha, watermelons are actually the easiest! Just touch anywhere! (all points are the same).