The Seven Messengers and the "Buzzati sequence"

Abstract

A young Prince decides to explore the Father's Kingdom and aims to reach its furthermost boundaries. He starts from the City with a Caravan and seven fast and strong Messengers. They have the task to maintain the communications between the Caravan and the City during the exploration, going back and forth between the Caravan and the City while the Caravan inexorably goes away. Drawing inspiration from a fantasy tale by the Italian writer Dino Buzzati, I derive the geometric progression (named "Buzzati sequence" in his honor) which governs the duration of the Messenger's trips, renewing further the fascination of the tale. I also note with wonder how all this apparently hidden mathematical structure was already known to the author. An extension of the "Buzzati sequence" to relativistic velocities of the Caravan and the Messengers is finally presented as exercise.