The Spider and the Fly: A Geometric Encounter in Three Dimensions

I first encountered Stella the Spider in a text by Del Grande, Bisset, and Swift (1976). The text contains the original spider-and-the-fly problem from Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and Newman (1940) as well as a simpler version of the problem. Intrigued by a large, sinister-looking spider trying to catch a helpless little fly, I began using Stella as the main character in a number of threedimensional geometry problems. The problems all deal with the same mathematical theme: finding the minimal distance between two points. For most problems, students need some intuitive knowledge of geometry—including the theorem of Pythagoras.