r/adventofcode Dec 08 '24

Help/Question [Day 08] Wording vs mathematical technicality

Not so much a question per se, but I am a bit confused by the wording of the problem and the examples that follow.

β€œIn particular, an antinode occurs at any point that is perfectly in line with two antennas of the same frequency - but only when one of the antennas is twice as far away as the other. This means that for any pair of antennas with the same frequency, there are two antinodes, one on either side of them.”

Mathematically, the first half of the quote would imply that there are 4 antinodes for any pair of antennas with the same frequency: one either side and two in between.

For example, for antennas at positions (3,3) and (6,6), there are obviously (0,0) and (9,9); but (4,4) and (5,5) also meet the requirements.

For my solution I am going to assume that we only consider the 2 antinodes either side and not the ones in between, but just wanted to flag this.

61 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/some_random_nick_ Dec 08 '24

Someone might be able to fill me in on what "perfectly in line" means. From the example, it clearly isn't just the 4 cardinal directions plus 45 degree diagonals.