Previously I posted a well known problem which asks: suppose we are on a circular boating lake when fog descends. We know the size and shape of the lake and can travel any distance and in any direction we please, but we don't know where we are on the lake, so we are rowing blind. What is the shortest distance we must be prepared to row to be sure of escaping from the pond. and what path should we follow?
The answer is that you should row in the straight line until you hit the bank and may have to travel a distance equal to the diameter of the pond, and this cannot be improved on. My proof is here. I actually found this for myself some years ago but it turned out to have already been published 40 year before. so I was late to the party.
A follow up question was: what if we are on a pond in the shape of an equilateral triangle? The diameter of an equilateral triangle is just the length of one of its sides and this is the least escape distance if you keep to a straight line. But rather surprisingly (well I think it is) a zig-zag escape path exists which is shorter, at about 0.98198 of the side length.
Here are two pictures of the path in different positions and you can probably see how it manages to always reach the perimeter of the triangle even though it is shorter than the diameter.
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This path was discovered by Besicovitch. This and related problems are usually framed in terms of being lost in a forest. See here for a an extensive discussion of escape paths from forests of different shapes.