The researcher explains the experiment is entirely harmless, and the university has strict ethical guidelines. This is your reassurance to yourself after climbing down the ladder into the "experimental chamber". The labcoat wearing researcher explained that the study was something about how subjects orient themselves without stimuli, and something else about being careful not to run because the floors weren't even. When the lights flash on, the ladder has been raised and the unreachable cieling tile had been replaced, so as to be indistinct from the others. You stand in the intersection of two long corridors several meters in length.
On the outside the researcher, now joined by several colleagues, laughs as he watches the centre box containing yourself tilt into motion. "Will the subject not be able to escape?", asks a grad student.
Taking an arbitrary path you head down a corridor, and the seemingly flimsy chamber shudders with each step. At one point your step doesn't land and brief feeling of vertigo overtakes you until your foot lands solidly. Again the chamber shudders, and you curse the uneven floors. You reach the end and have a choice of turning left, right or back. You choose left, and again after travelling about half way, a missed step and vertigo. You reach the end and are back at a four way intersection.
"It's doubtful", replied the researcher. "Each box has a wheeled rocker bottom, in a track. Once the subject crosses the centre point of any corridor the box slightly tilts, and slides to align with another corridor". "Ah!" replied the student, "once the subject moves down any two intersecting axis they unknowingly reconfigure the maze!"
What do you do?-- rcarty, Sep 16 2013 I would look for algebra graffiti on the walls.
This is what Boob McNutt did to get out of maze he was rudely tossed into.
Then I would sit down and cry.
(Boob McNutt was a comic strip by Rube Goldberg which ran from 1915 to September 1934. )-- popbottle, Sep 16 2013 That's almost my name.-- rcarty, Sep 16 2013 random, halfbakery