Cushion Ball
A standard English snooker table is 6' x 12'. We know that the shortest path between any two points on the table is given by the straight line between them. How do we figure out the shortest distance between two points if the ball must bounce off one wall? What if it must bounce off 2 walls? 3 walls?
If you want to try one yourself, let the bottom left hand corner of the pool table be the origin. Consider the case when the cue ball is at (5,5) and the target ball is at (10,2). Which wall gives the shortest path to the target?
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