\n<\/p>\n
Earlier today, I set you these three geometrical puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.<\/p>\n
1. Bonnie Tiler<\/strong><\/p>\n Below left is a square grid with three of its corner cells missing. Below right is a tile made of three cells in a line.<\/p>\n Given that there are 33 cells in the grid, can you cover it with 11 of these tiles? If not, why not?<\/em><\/p>\n Solution <\/strong>No, you cant. Every position of the tile covers a blue, yellow and red cell. If a covering existed, the grid would have to have 11 cells of each colour. But there are 12 red cells and 10 yellow ones.<\/p>\n 2. Assembly needed<\/strong><\/p>\n The left-hand shape below can be cut into four identical pieces, cutting only along the black lines, which can be fitted back together to make a square, as shown in the right-hand shape.<\/p>\n Can you find a different way to cut the left-hand shape into four identical pieces that can be rearranged to make a square? (The pieces may be rotated or reflected.)<\/em><\/p>\n Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n 3. Pizza party<\/strong><\/p>\n Below is one way to divide three pizzas among five people. Three people get a 3\/5 slice, and two get a 2\/5 and a 1\/5 slice. Another way would be to divide each pizza into five equal slices, with each person getting three.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the smallest number of pieces so that each person gets exactly the same numbers and sizes of pieces?<\/em><\/p>\n Solution<\/strong> Ten pieces. Each gets a half and a tenth.<\/p>\n Thanks to Ian Stewart for today\u2019s puzzles. His new book Reaching for the Extreme is out on February 12 and can be pre-ordered at the Guardian Bookshop.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earlier today, I set you these three geometrical puzzles. Here they are again with solutions. 1. Bonnie Tiler Below left is a square grid with three of its corner cells missing. Below right is a tile made of three cells in a line. Given that there are 33 cells in the grid, can you cover<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[304,2032,22282,22283,1649],"class_list":{"0":"post-42119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-cut","9":"tag-mathematics","10":"tag-puzzling","11":"tag-slices","12":"tag-solve"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}