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Mon 16 May, 2005 11:47 pm
Pay no attention to the dots. I had to add them for formatting. Treat all of the other lines as solid lines. Basically it is a few rectangles and a couple of squares, all connected.
Draw a single, constant, line through each of the sides, lines, crossing each line only one time. It is okay for the line you are drawing to cross itself. The ends of the line can start and stop inside or outside the puzzle.
_______________________________________
l................................ l........................................ l
l.................................l.........................................l
l................................ l........................................ l
l.................................l.........................................l
l_________________l____________________l
l................l................ .................l...................... l
l................l..................................l.......................l
l................l................ .................l...................... l
l................l..................................l.......................l
l________l_________________l____________l
It can't be done. It is equivalent to a graph with six nodes. One node has nine edges, three nodes have five edges, and two nodes have four edges. Since four nodes have an odd number of edges, it will take two lines to accomplish the task.
Perhaps if you bend the rules a bit...
whim