How to Find a Way Out of Any Maze
A maze is a structure made up of one or more winding paths leading from an entrance to a goal. Since old times, mazes have been carrying a sense of mystery. One of the most famous mazes was the one where the Minotaur lived, and it plays an important role in ancient Greek mythology. In the modern world, such mazes are objects of entertainment. Parks and gardens feature intricate hedge mazes, and there there are also mirror and snow labyrinths.
5-Minute Crafts would like to tell our readers about 2 ways to find the way out of a maze. However, take into account the fact that if you use ready-made instructions, you’ll perhaps deprive yourself of inspiration and joy when looking for a way out of the maze on your own.
A wall follower, also known as the left-hand rule or the right-hand rule
- What mazes this method is good for: It’s good for “simple” mazes where all the walls are connected together, and there are no paths that cross over each other with bridges or passage loops that lead to the start of the maze. This method, however, will not work if the start and the endpoint are located in the center of the maze.
- How to escape the maze:
1. Enter the maze and immediately place your hand (right or left) on the wall of the maze at the entrance.
2. Walk while keeping your hand in contact with the wall. Eventually, you will get out of the maze.
Note: If you start to apply this method anytime apart from the start of the maze, you can get trapped by a separate standing wall that winds around itself and doesn’t have entrances or exits. If this is the case, try to mark your position somehow. If you come across the starting point again, then switch to another wall, along which you haven’t yet walked.
Trémaux’s algorithm
- What mazes this method is good for: There are complex mazes that can’t be escaped using the wall follower method, like, for example, mazes with many bridges.
- How to escape the maze:
1. You have to take something with you that will help you mark the paths you’ve passed. If the walls of the maze are made of hard surfaces, such as concrete, brick, or wood, then you can use chalk. In other cases, you can leave pebbles or breadcrumbs behind, as did the characters from the fairy tales Hop-o’-My-Thumb and Hansel and Gretel.
2. Every time you enter a passage, place a marker, whether it be with chalk, a pebble, or some breadcrumbs. If you’re using pebbles, place them close to the wall so that other people who walk through the maze don’t accidentally kick or move them.
3. When you exit the passage, also place a mark at the end of the wall.
4. If you come up to an intersection in the maze where all the passages are unmarked, choose one of them (it doesn’t matter which one). Don’t forget to mark it at the entrance and exit.
5. If this leads you to another intersection where one path is new to you and the other one is not, choose the unknown path.
6. If you find yourself at a dead-end, go back and put the second mark down. This will mean that this path has been passed twice, there and back. You no longer need to walk it.
7. If you have to choose between 2 paths, one of which was used once, and the other one was already used 2 times, select the path that was used 1 time and leave the second mark there. As a rule of thumb, never choose a path that already has 2 marks.
This method will surely help you escape any maze. But it’s not guaranteed that you’ll find the shortest and fastest route.