On the Closed-Form Solution to the Interior Goat Problem in One Dimension

Abstract

The "interior goat problem" is a numerical puzzle which has haunted mathematicians for nearly three centuries. Closed-form solutions have only been found for the two-dimensional case, and although approximations have been established for higher-dimensional versions, the mathematical literature lacks a solution to the one-dimensional interior goat problem. To amend this oversight, we provide a closed-form solution to the interior goat problem in one dimension and speculate on continuations to even lower dimensional cases.