Floyd's Cycle detection algorithm | Determining the starting point of cycle

Question Detail: 

I am seeking help understanding Floyd's cycle detection algorithm. I have gone through the explanation on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_detection#Tortoise_and_hare)

I can see how the algorithm detects cycle in O(n) time. However, I am unable to visualise the fact that once the tortoise and hare pointers meet for the first time, the start of the cycle can be determined by moving tortoise pointer back to start and then moving both tortoise and hare one step at a time. The point where they first meet is the start of the cycle.

Can someone help by providing an explanation, hopefully different from the one on wikipedia, as I am unable to understand/visualise it?

Asked By : Anurag Kapur

Best Answer from StackOverflow

Question Source : http://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/10360

Answered By : Anurag Kapur

I found the answer on stackoverflow. Thanks if anyone was looking into this for me. And for those who like me wanted an explanation, please refer to: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3952805/proof-of-detecting-the-start-of-cycle-in-linked-list The chosen answer to the question, explains it!