Ant Problem

This is one of Alex Bellos’s Monday Puzzles in the Guardian. I basically found the same solution as Bellos and his commenters, but wrote it up with what I thought were more explanatory graphics. The idea is that there is a bunch of ants on a stick who all walk a the same speed of 1 centimeter per second. When an ant runs into another ant, they both turn around and go the opposite direction. “So here is the puzzle: Which ant is the last to fall off the stick? And how long will it be before he or she does fall off?”  See the Ant Problem.

Answer