Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The missing square puzzle is an optical illusion used in mathematics classes to help students reason about geometrical figures; or rather to teach them not to reason using figures, but to use only textual descriptions and the axioms of geometry. It depicts two arrangements made of similar shapes in slightly different configurations.
How to cook a puzzle, or mathematical one-uppery 1966 Jun: The persistence (and futility) of efforts to trisect the angle: 1966 Jul: Freud's friend Wilhelm Fliess and his theory of male and female life cycles 1966 Aug: Puzzles that can be solved by reasoning based on elementary physical principles 1966 Sep: The problem of Mrs. Perkins' quilt ...
chessboard paradox. A square with a side length of 8 units ("chessboard") is dissected into four pieces, which can be assembled into a 5x13 rectangle. Since the area of the square is 64 units but the area of the rectangle is 65 units, this seems paradoxical at first.
Chessboard paradox. The chessboard paradox [1] [2] or paradox of Loyd and Schlömilch [3] is a falsidical paradox based on an optical illusion. A chessboard or a square with a side length of 8 units is cut into four pieces. Those four pieces are used to form a rectangle with side lengths of 13 and 5 units.
The term paradox is often used to describe a counter-intuitive result. However, some of these paradoxes qualify to fit into the mainstream viewpoint of a paradox, which is a self-contradictory result gained even while properly applying accepted ways of reasoning.
Hooper's paradox is a falsidical paradox based on an optical illusion. A geometric shape with an area of 32 units is dissected into four parts, which afterwards get assembled into a rectangle with an area of only 30 units.
The missing square puzzle is an optical illusion used in mathematics classes to help students reason about geometrical figures; or rather to teach them not to reason using figures, but to use only textual descriptions and the axioms of geometry. It depicts two arrangements made of similar shapes in slightly different configurations.
Martin Gardner presents and discusses the problem [1] in his book of mathematical puzzles published in 1979 and cites references to it as early as 1895. The crossed ladders problem may appear in various forms, with variations in name, using various lengths and heights, or requesting unusual solutions such as cases where all values are integers.