The three snails

I think everyone has come across this familiar problem: Three snails A, B, C are initially located at the vertices of an equilateral triangle. Starting at t=0, they all move with the same constant speed such that A always points in the direction of B, B always points in the direction of C and C always points towards A.
Given the side-length of the triangle and the speed of the snails, one is required to find the time after which they meet. This problem can be solved quite easily using relative motion.

However, can we tell how many times each of the snails encircle the ultimate meeting point?
Justification of the answer should be given as well.

2 Answers

9
Celestine preetham ·

have done this already

an add on to this Q for those interested is to find the Eq of path of the snails

Its a " logarithmic spiral " and using that eq above Q can be answered directly

1
Rohan Ghosh ·

this problem was previously done by me (very easy)
answer infinity times

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