August 20, 2010

The Attack - An Interesting Scenario

I have been thinking about this scenario for quite some time, assume a girl and two guys (friends) were on an adventure trip to some remote place and they were suddenly attacked by another guy. The attacker is twice as powerful as one of the guys, and four times as powerful as the other. Assuming the rate of decrease of each guy's power during a one on one fight follows the same law. Would the two guys be successful in protecting the girl ? If they would have to succeed, who should fight the attacker first ?
There essentially are a lot of small facts and observations you should consider here, the rate of decrease in power is dependent on the time and the initial power levels, and the rate is obviously not linear with time. So it is indeed intuitive that the attacker's power would decrease much faster than the other two guys' power would. Also consider the fact that I have considered the power ratios 1,2,4 in this case, what other power ratio systems in such a scenario would allow the girl to remain unharmed ?
Note : One of the first listeners to this problem asked me how the solution would change if the girl fled while the guys were fighting ;) , so for all convenience assume that the girl is shocked by the attack and does not move, and it is totally upon the two guys to protect her.