ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Hexagonal tortoise problem

Okay kiddo, have you ever played with those colorful hexagonal tiles that you can build different shapes and patterns with? They kind of look like little honeycomb pieces. Well, imagine you have one of those tiles and you want to put a tortoise on it.

Now, the question is, how can you make the tortoise travel to every single tile on the board without repeating any tiles? This is called a "hexagonal tortoise problem" and it can get pretty tricky!

So, let's say you start the tortoise on one tile. It can only move to the tiles that are touching it and it has to move in a certain pattern so it doesn't skip any tiles. The pattern is called a "Hamiltonian circuit" and it's like following a specific road map to visit every single tile.

The problem is, not all hexagonal tile boards have a Hamiltonian circuit, which means it's actually impossible for the tortoise to visit every single tile without repeating any. Scientists and mathematicians have been studying this problem for a long time and trying to come up with solutions.

In short, the hexagonal tortoise problem is a puzzle that challenges you to figure out how to make a tortoise travel to every single tile on a hexagonal board without repeating any tiles, which can be really tough but also super fun to try and solve!