Problem: The area of the green square is two-fifths of the area of the whole diagram. What fraction of the whole diagram is the sum of the areas of the four black triangles?

Click ‘Read more’ below to play with a Java applet that should help you to understand the problem.

Answer & analysis soon!

[Read more →]

Happy Christmas from The Secret Garden of Maths!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8428406.stm

Can you work out the size of angle xº?

That’s a regular hexagon and a regular pentagon.  Good luck!

(Hint: Consider the size of the interior angles in a polygon, the sum of angles round a point, and the sum of angles on a line)

(This is my first post in quite a while – apologies for the delay. I’ve been trying to become a qualified teacher!). [Read more →]

Want to lose weight fast?  Then jump on a plane to the equator!

[Read more →]

I was very saddened to hear today of Stephen Gateley’s sudden death.  Stephen gave a huge amount to pop music and was an inspirational figure.  May he rest in peace.

[Read more →]

What is this shape called?

[Read more →]

A Geometric Secret of A4 Paper

Problem:

We wish to make two folds in a rectangular piece of paper to form a trapezium (or trapezoid for the chaps across the water).  [Read more →]

In Part I we calculated the probability of winning a single-suit version of the Higher of Lower card game.  The objective of this post is to find the probability of winning the full, unsimplified, 4-suit version of the game played in pubs across the land. [Read more →]

[Read more →]