In both parts of this question we consider the limiting case of a process which is repeated infinitely often and things are not what they might seem to be.
(a) In a square
with sides of length 1 unit a path is drawn from
to the opposite corner
so that the steps in the path are all parallel to
or parallel to
and not necessarily equal steps. Draw paths of this sort with 5 steps, 10 steps, 20 steps ... Find the total length of the path in each case. What would the length of such a path be if it had 1000 steps? What about the length of the path with 1 million steps? Is there anything surprising about this result? Suppose you keep increasing the number of steps in paths from
to
of this sort, putting in more and more and more steps. What can you say about the total length of the path?
(b) Now draw the graphs of
for
and
. As
tends to infinity the graphs oscillate more and more and get closer and closer to the
axis. Prove that the length of the curve from
to
is the same for all values of
.