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Conference rusure::math

Title:Mathematics at DEC
Moderator:RUSURE::EDP
Created:Mon Feb 03 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2083
Total number of notes:14613

359.0. "A maximal triangle" by TOOLS::STAN () Sat Oct 19 1985 00:52

Just so that we don't start a precedent of only posing hard problems
in this note file, let me throw out an easy one (you "heavies" please
refrain from answering this too fast - give newcomers a chance):

The triangle with sides 25-25-30 has the same area as the triangle
with sides 25-25-40.  At first this sounds anomalous, but a little
thought will show why this is true.

Anyhow, it means that as you take a pair of dividers with sides of
length 25 and open them up, the area formed starting at 0 gets larger,
passes through 25-25-30 (where the area is 300), hits some maximum,
starts to get smaller, passes through 25-25-40 (with area 300 again),
and ends up at 25-25-50 with area 0 again.  Thus we see that there is
some value x for which the triangle with sides 25, 25, x has maximum
area.  What is this value of x?
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
359.1TOOLS::STANWed Nov 20 1985 22:221
This problem is now open to all takers.
359.2R2ME2::GILBERTThu Nov 21 1985 00:361
25 sqrt(2), or roughly 35.3553.