Tremaux formulated rules by which an explorer or searcher could
visit every point of a connected maze and return to his entry point.
Without much difficulty his rules can be generalized to the case of
search by a number of people where it is required that every point be
visited by one searcher or another. It will be gratifying if it turns
out that the method is practical for use in the recovery of disaster
victims or lost property in buildings or districts.
It is assumed that the maze is finite and that any access point
not used by a searcher is regarded as blanked off.
Searchers may start from any point in the maze or on its
boundary as long as the number of searchers there does not exceed the
number of ways from it. Then they can and should start off in different
directions.
The rules for each searcher are:
1. When possible he takes a route not previously searched by
anyone. If two or more searchers arrive at a junction at the same time
any priority applies.
2. When Rule1 cannot be applied, that is if he comes to a dead
end, meets another searcher in a passage or comes to a junction where
there is no previously unused route he backtracks, that is follows in
reverse the route by which he arrived at that point, ignoring any
passage he has already done both ways, till he comes to a point where
Rule1 applies. Or if there is no such point he will return to his
start-point and then his search is over.
Following these rules each searcher will come back to his
starting point having been along a number of passages once in one
direction and once in the other direction. By these two rules and
connectedness every passage gets searched.
Copyright Nov2005 conesetter.