Amusements in Mathematics Part 7

It will be seen that in this case the square patchwork quilt is built up of 169 pieces. The puzzle is to find the smallest possible number of square portions of which the quilt could be composed and show how they might be joined together. Or, to put it the reverse way, divide the quilt into as few square portions as possible by merely cutting the st.i.tches.

174.--THE SQUARES OF BROCADE.

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I happened to be paying a call at the house of a lady, when I took up from a table two lovely squares of brocade. They were beautiful specimens of Eastern workmanship--both of the same design, a delicate chequered pattern.

"Are they not exquisite?" said my friend. "They were brought to me by a cousin who has just returned from India. Now, I want you to give me a little a.s.sistance. You see, I have decided to join them together so as to make one large square cushion-cover. How should I do this so as to mutilate the material as little as possible? Of course I propose to make my cuts only along the lines that divide the little chequers."

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I cut the two squares in the manner desired into four pieces that would fit together and form another larger square, taking care that the pattern should match properly, and when I had finished I noticed that two of the pieces were of exactly the same area; that is, each of the two contained the same number of chequers. Can you show how the cuts were made in accordance with these conditions?

175--ANOTHER PATCHWORK PUZZLE.

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A lady was presented, by two of her girl friends, with the pretty pieces of silk patchwork shown in our ill.u.s.tration. It will be seen that both pieces are made up of squares all of the same size--one 12 12 and the other 5 5. She proposes to join them together and make one square patchwork quilt, 13 13, but, of course, she will not cut any of the material--merely cut the st.i.tches where necessary and join together again. What perplexes her is this. A friend a.s.sures her that there need be no more than four pieces in all to join up for the new quilt. Could you show her how this little needlework puzzle is to be solved in so few pieces?

176.--LINOLEUM CUTTING.

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The diagram herewith represents two separate pieces of linoleum. The chequered pattern is not repeated at the back, so that the pieces cannot be turned over. The puzzle is to cut the two squares into four pieces so that they shall fit together and form one perfect square 10 10, so that the pattern shall properly match, and so that the larger piece shall have as small a portion as possible cut from it.

177.--ANOTHER LINOLEUM PUZZLE.

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Can you cut this piece of linoleum into four pieces that will fit together and form a perfect square? Of course the cuts may only be made along the lines.

VARIOUS GEOMETRICAL PUZZLES.

"So various are the tastes of men." MARK AKENSIDE.

178.--THE CARDBOARD BOX.

This puzzle is not difficult, but it will be found entertaining to discover the simple rule for its solution. I have a rectangular cardboard box. The top has an area of 120 square inches, the side 96 square inches, and the end 80 square inches. What are the exact dimensions of the box?

179.--STEALING THE BELL-ROPES.

Two men broke into a church tower one night to steal the bell-ropes. The two ropes pa.s.sed through holes in the wooden ceiling high above them, and they lost no time in climbing to the top. Then one man drew his knife and cut the rope above his head, in consequence of which he fell to the floor and was badly injured. His fellow-thief called out that it served him right for being such a fool. He said that he should have done as he was doing, upon which he cut the rope below the place at which he held on. Then, to his dismay, he found that he was in no better plight, for, after hanging on as long as his strength lasted, he was compelled to let go and fall beside his comrade. Here they were both found the next morning with their limbs broken. How far did they fall? One of the ropes when they found it was just touching the floor, and when you pulled the end to the wall, keeping the rope taut, it touched a point just three inches above the floor, and the wall was four feet from the rope when it hung at rest. How long was the rope from floor to ceiling?

180.--THE FOUR SONS.

Readers will recognize the diagram as a familiar friend of their youth. A man possessed a square-shaped estate. He bequeathed to his widow the quarter of it that is shaded off. The remainder was to be divided equitably amongst his four sons, so that each should receive land of exactly the same area and exactly similar in shape. We are shown how this was done. But the remainder of the story is not so generally known. In the centre of the estate was a well, indicated by the dark spot, and Benjamin, Charles, and David complained that the division was not "equitable," since Alfred had access to this well, while they could not reach it without trespa.s.sing on somebody else's land. The puzzle is to show how the estate is to be apportioned so that each son shall have land of the same shape and area, and each have access to the well without going off his own land.

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181.--THE THREE RAILWAY STATIONS.

As I sat in a railway carriage I noticed at the other end of the compartment a worthy squire, whom I knew by sight, engaged in conversation with another pa.s.senger, who was evidently a friend of his.

"How far have you to drive to your place from the railway station?" asked the stranger.

"Well," replied the squire, "if I get out at Appleford, it is just the same distance as if I go to Bridgefield, another fifteen miles farther on; and if I changed at Appleford and went thirteen miles from there to Carterton, it would still be the same distance. You see, I am equidistant from the three stations, so I get a good choice of trains."

Now I happened to know that Bridgefield is just fourteen miles from Carterton, so I amused myself in working out the exact distance that the squire had to drive home whichever station he got out at. What was the distance?

182.--THE GARDEN PUZZLE.

Professor Rackbrain tells me that he was recently smoking a friendly pipe under a tree in the garden of a country acquaintance. The garden was enclosed by four straight walls, and his friend informed him that he had measured these and found the lengths to be 80, 45, 100, and 63 yards respectively. "Then," said the professor, "we can calculate the exact area of the garden." "Impossible," his host replied, "because you can get an infinite number of different shapes with those four sides." "But you forget," Rackbrane said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that you told me once you had planted this tree equidistant from all the four corners of the garden." Can you work out the garden's area?

183.--DRAWING A SPIRAL.

If you hold the page horizontally and give it a quick rotary motion while looking at the centre of the spiral, it will appear to revolve. Perhaps a good many readers are acquainted with this little optical illusion. But the puzzle is to show how I was able to draw this spiral with so much exact.i.tude without using anything but a pair of compa.s.ses and the sheet of paper on which the diagram was made. How would you proceed in such circ.u.mstances?

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184.--HOW TO DRAW AN OVAL.

Can you draw a perfect oval on a sheet of paper with one sweep of the compa.s.ses? It is one of the easiest things in the world when you know how.

185.--ST. GEORGE'S BANNER.

At a celebration of the national festival of St. George's Day I was contemplating the familiar banner of the patron saint of our country. We all know the red cross on a white ground, shown in our ill.u.s.tration. This is the banner of St. George. The banner of St. Andrew (Scotland) is a white "St. Andrew's Cross" on a blue ground. That of St. Patrick (Ireland) is a similar cross in red on a white ground. These three are united in one to form our Union Jack.

Now on looking at St. George's banner it occurred to me that the following question would make a simple but pretty little puzzle. Supposing the flag measures four feet by three feet, how wide must the arm of the cross be if it is required that there shall be used just the same quant.i.ty of red and of white bunting?

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186.--THE CLOTHES LINE PUZZLE.

A boy tied a clothes line from the top of each of two poles to the base of the other. He then proposed to his father the following question. As one pole was exactly seven feet above the ground and the other exactly five feet, what was the height from the ground where the two cords crossed one another?

187.--THE MILKMAID PUZZLE.

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Here is a little pastoral puzzle that the reader may, at first sight, be led into supposing is very profound, involving deep calculations. He may even say that it is quite impossible to give any answer unless we are told something definite as to the distances. And yet it is really quite "childlike and bland."

In the corner of a field is seen a milkmaid milking a cow, and on the other side of the field is the dairy where the extract has to be deposited. But it has been noticed that the young woman always goes down to the river with her pail before returning to the dairy. Here the suspicious reader will perhaps ask why she pays these visits to the river. I can only reply that it is no business of ours. The alleged milk is entirely for local consumption.

"Where are you going to, my pretty maid?" "Down to the river, sir," she said. "I'll not choose your dairy, my pretty maid." "n.o.body axed you, sir," she said.

If one had any curiosity in the matter, such an independent spirit would entirely disarm one. So we will pa.s.s from the point of commercial morality to the subject of the puzzle.

Draw a line from the milking-stool down to the river and thence to the door of the dairy, which shall indicate the shortest possible route for the milkmaid. That is all. It is quite easy to indicate the exact spot on the bank of the river to which she should direct her steps if she wants as short a walk as possible. Can you find that spot?

188.--THE BALL PROBLEM.

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A stonemason was engaged the other day in cutting out a round ball for the purpose of some architectural decoration, when a smart schoolboy came upon the scene.

"Look here," said the mason, "you seem to be a sharp youngster, can you tell me this? If I placed this ball on the level ground, how many other b.a.l.l.s of the same size could I lay around it (also on the ground) so that every ball should touch this one?"

The boy at once gave the correct answer, and then put this little question to the mason:-- "If the surface of that ball contained just as many square feet as its volume contained cubic feet, what would be the length of its diameter?"

The stonemason could not give an answer. Could you have replied correctly to the mason's and the boy's questions?

189.--THE YORKSHIRE ESTATES.

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I was on a visit to one of the large towns of Yorkshire. While walking to the railway station on the day of my departure a man thrust a hand-bill upon me, and I took this into the railway carriage and read it at my leisure. It informed me that three Yorkshire neighbouring estates were to be offered for sale. Each estate was square in shape, and they joined one another at their corners, just as shown in the diagram. Estate A contains exactly 370 acres, B contains 116 acres, and C 74 acres.

Now, the little triangular bit of land enclosed by the three square estates was not offered for sale, and, for no reason in particular, I became curious as to the area of that piece. How many acres did it contain?

190.--FARMER WURZEL'S ESTATE.

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I will now present another land problem. The demonstration of the answer that I shall give will, I think, be found both interesting and easy of comprehension.

Farmer Wurzel owned the three square fields shown in the annexed plan, containing respectively 18, 20, and 26 acres. In order to get a ring-fence round his property he bought the four intervening triangular fields. The puzzle is to discover what was then the whole area of his estate.

191.--THE CRESCENT PUZZLE.

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Here is an easy geometrical puzzle. The crescent is formed by two circles, and C is the centre of the larger circle. The width of the crescent between B and D is 9 inches, and between E and F 5 inches. What are the diameters of the two circles?

192.--THE PUZZLE WALL.

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There was a small lake, around which four poor men built their cottages. Four rich men afterwards built their mansions, as shown in the ill.u.s.tration, and they wished to have the lake to themselves, so they instructed a builder to put up the shortest possible wall that would exclude the cottagers, but give themselves free access to the lake. How was the wall to be built?

193.--THE SHEEPFOLD.

It is a curious fact that the answers always given to some of the best-known puzzles that appear in every little book of fireside recreations that has been published for the last fifty or a hundred years are either quite unsatisfactory or clearly wrong. Yet n.o.body ever seems to detect their faults. Here is an example:--A farmer had a pen made of fifty hurdles, capable of holding a hundred sheep only. Supposing he wanted to make it sufficiently large to hold double that number, how many additional hurdles must he have?

194.--THE GARDEN WALLS.

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A speculative country builder has a circular field, on which he has erected four cottages, as shown in the ill.u.s.tration. The field is surrounded by a brick wall, and the owner undertook to put up three other brick walls, so that the neighbours should not be overlooked by each other, but the four tenants insist that there shall be no favouritism, and that each shall have exactly the same length of wall s.p.a.ce for his wall fruit trees. The puzzle is to show how the three walls may be built so that each tenant shall have the same area of ground, and precisely the same length of wall.

Of course, each garden must be entirely enclosed by its walls, and it must be possible to prove that each garden has exactly the same length of wall. If the puzzle is properly solved no figures are necessary.

195.--LADY BELINDA'S GARDEN.

Lady Belinda is an enthusiastic gardener. In the ill.u.s.tration she is depicted in the act of worrying out a pleasant little problem which I will relate. One of her gardens is oblong in shape, enclosed by a high holly hedge, and she is turning it into a rosary for the cultivation of some of her choicest roses. She wants to devote exactly half of the area of the garden to the flowers, in one large bed, and the other half to be a path going all round it of equal breadth throughout. Such a garden is shown in the diagram at the foot of the picture. How is she to mark out the garden under these simple conditions? She has only a tape, the length of the garden, to do it with, and, as the holly hedge is so thick and dense, she must make all her measurements inside. Lady Belinda did not know the exact dimensions of the garden, and, as it was not necessary for her to know, I also give no dimensions. It is quite a simple task no matter what the size or proportions of the garden may be. Yet how many lady gardeners would know just how to proceed? The tape may be quite plain--that is, it need not be a graduated measure.

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196.--THE TETHERED GOAT.

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Here is a little problem that everybody should know how to solve. The goat is placed in a half-acre meadow, that is in shape an equilateral triangle. It is tethered to a post at one corner of the field. What should be the length of the tether (to the nearest inch) in order that the goat shall be able to eat just half the gra.s.s in the field? It is a.s.sumed that the goat can feed to the end of the tether.

197.--THE COMPa.s.sES PUZZLE.

It is curious how an added condition or restriction will sometimes convert an absurdly easy puzzle into an interesting and perhaps difficult one. I remember buying in the street many years ago a little mechanical puzzle that had a tremendous sale at the time. It consisted of a medal with holes in it, and the puzzle was to work a ring with a gap in it from hole to hole until it was finally detached. As I was walking along the street I very soon acquired the trick of taking off the ring with one hand while holding the puzzle in my pocket. A friend to whom I showed the little feat set about accomplishing it himself, and when I met him some days afterwards he exhibited his proficiency in the art. But he was a little taken aback when I then took the puzzle from him and, while simply holding the medal between the finger and thumb of one hand, by a series of little shakes and jerks caused the ring, without my even touching it, to fall off upon the floor. The following little poser will probably prove a rather tough nut for a great many readers, simply on account of the restricted conditions:-- Show how to find exactly the middle of any straight line by means of the compa.s.ses only. You are not allowed to use any ruler, pencil, or other article--only the compa.s.ses; and no trick or dodge, such as folding the paper, will be permitted. You must simply use the compa.s.ses in the ordinary legitimate way.

198.--THE EIGHT STICKS.

I have eight sticks, four of them being exactly half the length of the others. I lay every one of these on the table, so that they enclose three squares, all of the same size. How do I do it? There must be no loose ends hanging over.

199.--PAPA'S PUZZLE.

Here is a puzzle by Pappus, who lived at Alexandria about the end of the third century. It is the fifth proposition in the eighth book of his Mathematical Collections. I give it in the form that I presented it some years ago under the t.i.tle "Papa's Puzzle," just to see how many readers would discover that it was by Pappus himself. "The little maid's papa has taken two different-sized rectangular pieces of cardboard, and has clipped off a triangular piece from one of them, so that when it is suspended by a thread from the point A it hangs with the long side perfectly horizontal, as shown in the ill.u.s.tration. He has perplexed the child by asking her to find the point A on the other card, so as to produce a similar result when cut and suspended by a thread." Of course, the point must not be found by trial clippings. A curious and pretty point is involved in this setting of the puzzle. Can the reader discover it?

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200.--A KITE-FLYING PUZZLE.

While accompanying my friend Professor Highflite during a scientific kite-flying compet.i.tion on the South Downs of Suss.e.x I was led into a little calculation that ought to interest my readers. The Professor was paying out the wire to which his kite was attached from a winch on which it had been rolled into a perfectly spherical form. This ball of wire was just two feet in diameter, and the wire had a diameter of one-hundredth of an inch. What was the length of the wire?

Now, a simple little question like this that everybody can perfectly understand will puzzle many people to answer in any way. Let us see whether, without going into any profound mathematical calculations, we can get the answer roughly--say, within a mile of what is correct! We will a.s.sume that when the wire is all wound up the ball is perfectly solid throughout, and that no allowance has to be made for the axle that pa.s.ses through it. With that simplification, I wonder how many readers can state within even a mile of the correct answer the length of that wire.

201.--HOW TO MAKE CISTERNS.

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Our friend in the ill.u.s.tration has a large sheet of zinc, measuring (before cutting) eight feet by three feet, and he has cut out square pieces (all of the same size) from the four corners and now proposes to fold up the sides, solder the edges, and make a cistern. But the point that puzzles him is this: Has he cut out those square pieces of the correct size in order that the cistern may hold the greatest possible quant.i.ty of water? You see, if you cut them very small you get a very shallow cistern; if you cut them large you get a tall and slender one. It is all a question of finding a way of cutting put these four square pieces exactly the right size. How are we to avoid making them too small or too large?

202.--THE CONE PUZZLE.

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I have a wooden cone, as shown in Fig. 1. How am I to cut out of it the greatest possible cylinder? It will be seen that I can cut out one that is long and slender, like Fig. 2, or short and thick, like Fig. 3. But neither is the largest possible. A child could tell you where to cut, if he knew the rule. Can you find this simple rule?

203.--CONCERNING WHEELS.

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