Monday Math Puzzle

[This is a back-issue of one of this site’s newsletters]

Here’s a nice math puzzle: Can you find a rectangle whose area equals its perimeter?

Ok, so that question doesn’t quite make sense – areas can’t equal lengths. However, once you’ve chosen some unit, say parsecs for example, you can look for a rectangle whose perimeter is some number of parsecs, and whose area is the same number of square parsecs.

Have a go at this puzzle, and see how many rectangles like this you can find. Next week, I’ll show you one way to solve it, with a link to right-angled triangles.

While you’re solving that, would you like to make a hexahexaflexagon? What’s that? You don’t know what the heck’s a hexahexaflexagon? This article will tell you.

See you next week!

Yours,
Michael Hartley