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Math people: would a ship that is 1/4 slower but can complete a 180° turn 1/4 faster escape its pursuer? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 8 months ago by Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm sure pirates knew the answer. Probably fighter pilots as well.

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[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Even assuming open 2D sea and a pursuer turn radius of, let's say, 20 ship lengths, I'm sure that depends on boundary conditions like how far it has to go to escape and the position/speed/orientation the ships start with.

Obviously, if we start with a pursuer right off the stern, there's no escaping.

For real ships, there also will be a time limit, because someone will run out of supplies first. The way I imagine doing this would basically be to find a pattern where no matter what the pursuer does they can't board, but it doesn't matter if you run out of hard tack while the people chasing are still well-fed. Cannons would change the logic here too.