Following a discussion in Reasonable Deviations, I spend some three hours solving a (quoting) “little school-level problem” posed in a weird Russian CAPTCHA system. Not that it is extra-difficult, but some people may find it interesting to see the solution of its generalized formulation, so here it is.
Problem: we have an electric circuit as depicted in the following figure:
The task is to find the altogether resistance from A to B.
The answer is (numerator and denominator split by “-”):
(n2+n4)*(n1*y+n5*x)+(n1+n2)*n4*x
—————————————
(n1+n2)*y
, where:
x = n3*n2-n1*n4
y = (n1+n2)*(n3+n4)+(n1+n2+n3+n4)*n5
The solution is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »