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Oh no! The Evil Wizard Voldemort has captured another unicorn. Can you help Harry get to the unicorn as fast as he can?

Harry's mail owl has informed him of the location of the trapped unicorn. The unicorn is trapped exactly 120 meters East of the edge of the forest (indicated with a red dot on the map below). Harry is currently 360 meters due West of the forest edge and is 500 meters from the unicorn (as the owl flies). His location is indicated with a purple dot on the map.

Harry leaps on his Nimbus 2000 Flying Broomstick and rushes to aid the unicorn.

  1. If Harry's speed in the courtyard is 30 meters per second and his speed in the woods is 8 meters per second (it is much harder to dodge all those trees), where should he enter the woods so that he reaches the unicorn as fast as possible? Justify your answer using calculus!
  2. Assuming Harry follows the fastest possible path (found in the last part of the question), how fast will it take him to get there?
  3. Voldemort is located on the same horizontal line as Harry but he is located 15 meters East of the forest edge. His position is indicated with a black dot. If he moves at 6 meters per second, will Harry beat him to the unicorn (assume Voldemort left at the same time Harry did).
  4. How fast does it take Voldemort to arrive at the unicorn?

1. Why does email sent to me not arrive?

In Brief

There are three commmon reasons why you might not be getting an email that someone is sending to you.

  1. First, check your Mail Controls to make sure you are not blocking the person (or blocking everyone). If you are, the person trying to send you email should be receiving an error message saying that you are not accepting mail from them.
  2. Second, check your Spam Folder to see if messages from your correspondent are being tagged by AOL as being junk email. If they are, try adding your correspondent to your Address Book so that future messages will be delivered straight to you.
  3. Third, it's possible that AOL is blocking your correspondent's provider from sending mail because there have been complaints of abuse. Have your correspondent see AOL's Postmaster.Info: AOL Member FAQ for more information on how to make sure his messages get through. If this is the problem, he would be unable to get mail through to any AOL members -- not just you.

In Detail

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2. Why does email I send to other people not arrive?

In Brief

AOL will make every effort to deliver a message to your recipient, but does not have any control over a message once it leaves the AOL service. If your recipient is not with AOL, have check with their provider in an effort to figure out what happened to your message.

If you are receiving some type of error message in response to your email (examples can be found in AOL Help article "Why do I get a mailer-daemon error?"), look to it carefully for an explanation for what happened. Your recipient might have changed their address or you might be spelling it wrong.

In Detail

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3. Why can't I send or receive email?

In Brief

Problems sending and receiving mail are rarely related. See FAQ Questions 1 and 2 for information on how to track down each end of the problem.

If the problem affects one particular service, then it's possible that there is a communications block between that service and AOL. Try contacting that service's Postmaster to see if they are aware of problems both sending mail to and receiving mail from AOL.

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4. Why does mail sent to me/that I send take forever to get to its destination?

In Brief

AOL <-> Internet
Email usually travels from one service to another in a matter of mere minutes over the Internet, but there are a number of reasons why it could take longer. Various servers along the path the email takes could be overloaded or malfunctioning, which will slow things down. More information can be found in AOL Help article "Why is Internet mail sometimes slow?"

There isn't much that can be done to prevent this, anymore than one can reduce the impact of harsh weather on traffic. If you have chronic problems with one particular Internet provider, you may want to contact them to see if there is a more efficient way email could be routed between them and AOL.

AOL <-> AOL
Email from one AOL to another is generally instantaneous. If you experience delays, they could be caused by temporary problems with the AOL mail system. Try again in a few hours.

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5. Why do I get disconnected or freeze when I try to read or send mail?

In Brief

If you are regularly disconnected when trying to send or read email, check to make sure you are dialing into AOL at your modem's maximum speed. If you already are, try setting it to a lower speed. Make sure you've selected the correct profile for your modem in the AOL setup. If all that checks out, try a different local phone number (access numbers can be found at Keyword: Access). If several local phone numbers all have the same problem, it could be the quality of your physical phone line. Try asking neighbors who might also use various online services if they have similar difficulties keeping a stable connection. If they do, your entire neighborhood's phone wiring may be faulty. If not, it may just be your home's wiring. Either way, contact your phone company and arrange an inspection.

More help with being disconnected can be found at Keyword: Disconnect.

If your computer is freezing or crashing, you should investigate the possibility of software corruption. See Keyword: Help for more information.