#3125: Snake-in-the-Box Problem

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[A panel with text both above and below the illustration, with further text outside the panel below.]

[In the panel, above the illustration:]

A snake slithers around a hypercube. No two non-consecutive parts of its coils can be on adjacent corners.

[Three small illustrations of 4-dimensional hypercubes, each with a snake slithering around its edges. Each illustration has a red line or lines indicating an edge or edges where two non-consecutive parts of the snake are on adjacent corners. Below each hypercube is a red X.]

[A large illustration depicting a 4-dimensional hypercube with a snake slithering around its edges.]

[Below the large illustration is text printed in green. To the left of the text is a green checkmark.]

Dimensions=4

Max length=7

[The following text is printed in black, except for the last word "UNSOLVED" which is printed in red:]

Snake(N) = Largest snake that can fit in an N-dimensional hypercube

Snake(N=1, 2, 3 .. 8) = 1, 2, 4, 7, 13, 26, 50, 98

Snake(N>8) = UNSOLVED

[Text outside the panel:]

It turns out every scientific field has a key thought experiment that involves putting a cute animal in a weird box for no reason.

So far, quantum mechanics and graph theory have found theirs, but most other fields are still working on it.