Bridge Over the River

Pinkbird is trying to get to Redbird across the river. Where should we place the bridge, so that the path between the two birds becomes as short as possible?

Remark: The bridge is exactly as long as the river is wide, and must be placed straight across it. Additionally, it has some positive width.

SOLUTION

Notice that no matter how the bridge gets placed over the river, the shortest path would be to go to its top left corner, then traverse it diagonally, then go from its bottom right corner to Redbird. The second part of the way has fixed length, so we must minimize the first part plus the third part. In order to do that, imagine we place the bridge, so that its top left corner is at the current position of Pinkbird – point A. If the bottom right corner ends up at point C, then we must connect C with the position of Redbird – point B, and wherever the line intersects the bottom shore – point D, that will be the best place for the bottom right corner of the bridge.

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