Squaring the Square - Feb. 6-10, 1995 Amy tossed a xeroxed copy of an old Scientific American cover in Emily's lap. Some of the words underneath the picture were unreadable. "My dad gave me this last night. He's said it's something about 'squaring the square', or splitting a square into smaller squares, none of which have the same area. You can also do it to rectangles." "So is this a square?" asked Emily. "That's the problem. I'm not sure, and my dad couldn't remember. He did remember that the area of C is 64 and the area of D is 81. He said we could figure it out for ourselves." "Sure we can. It looks like the least complicated problem he's given us in a while!" "Yeah, just let it be me who solves it, and not my little sister!" ______________________ ________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | A | B | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_______ ________| |________________ _____| | | | | | H | | | | G | | C | | |_____|_______| | | | I->|_|________| | F | | | | | E | | | | | D | | | | | |________________|___________|__________| "My dad gave me an extra challenge, too," said Amy. "What's that? To find other squares or rectangles you can split into squares which have different areas?" "Yeah, but he said it's really hard, even for rectangles, and that he'd give a prize to anyone who could find one." "You mean one of those cool Geometry Forum t-shirts? Awesome! And when do we have to give him an answer?" "I think he said any time before Easter. That gives us lots of time!" Correct solutions to the problem were submitted by: Bill Becht, Bill Glisson, Mike Donovan, and Tim Pappas, School of the Holy Child Mike Veltri and friends, Burnaby South Secondary School Eric Chen, Burnaby South Secondary School Imran Hayat, Nancy Chen, Anita Lau, and Pawel Gobis, Burnaby South Secondary School David Love, Akiba Hebrew Academy Aron Freidenreich, Ariel Collins, Daniel A. Gabriel, and Lili Grunwald, Akiba Hebrew Academy Eric Wahl, Masterman High School Betsy McCormick, Fairfield HS Eric Robert, Fairfield HS Brad Warner,. Fairfield HS Samantha Brenner, Fairfield HS The following grade 9 Fairfield HS students: Jen Abrahamsen Julie Black David Gluckman Cecilia Merediz Arpan Munier Jessica Muniz Kelly Rodgers Next problem || Previous problem || Table of Contents || Forum Home Page