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Crossed Ladders Problem
The crossed ladders problem is a puzzle of unknown origin that has appeared in various publications and regularly reappears in Web pages and Usenet discussions. The problem Two ladders of lengths ''a'' and ''b'' lie oppositely across an alley, as shown in the figure. The ladders cross at a height of ''h'' above the alley floor. What is the width of the alley? Martin Gardner presents and discusses the problem 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. Its charm has been attributed to a seeming simplicity which can quickly devolve into an "algebraic mess" (characterization attributed by Gardner to D. F. Church). Solution The problem description implies that that and , that and that where ''A'' and ''B'' are the heights of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puzzle
A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle. There are different genres of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles, number puzzles, relational puzzles, and logic puzzles. The academic study of puzzles is called enigmatology. Puzzles are often created to be a form of entertainment but they can also arise from serious Mathematical problem, mathematical or logical problems. In such cases, their solution may be a significant contribution to mathematical research. Etymology The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' dates the word ''puzzle'' (as a verb) to the end of the 16th century. Its earliest use documented in the ''OED'' was in a book titled ''The Voyage of Robert Dudley (explorer), Robert Dudley...to the West Indies, 1594–95, narra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
The Wolfram Demonstrations Project is an organized, open-source collection of small (or medium-size) interactive programs called Demonstrations, which are meant to visually and interactively represent ideas from a range of fields. It is hosted by Wolfram Research, whose stated goal is to bring computational exploration to a large population. At its launch, it contained 1300 demonstrations but has grown to over 10,000. The site won a Parents' Choice Award in 2008. Technology The Demonstrations run in '' Mathematica'' 6 or above and in '' Wolfram CDF Player'' which is a free modified version of Wolfram's ''Mathematica'' and available for Windows, Linux and macOS and can operate as a web browser plugin. They typically consist of a very direct user interface to a graphic or visualization, which dynamically recomputes in response to user actions such as moving a slider, clicking a button, or dragging a piece of graphics. Each Demonstration also has a brief description of the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Right Trapezoid
A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a convex quadrilateral in Euclidean geometry. The parallel sides are called the ''bases'' of the trapezoid. The other two sides are called the ''legs'' (or the ''lateral sides'') if they are not parallel; otherwise, the trapezoid is a parallelogram, and there are two pairs of bases). A ''scalene trapezoid'' is a trapezoid with no sides of equal measure, in contrast with the special cases below. Etymology and ''trapezium'' versus ''trapezoid'' Ancient Greek mathematician Euclid defined five types of quadrilateral, of which four had two sets of parallel sides (known in English as square, rectangle, rhombus and rhomboid) and the last did not have two sets of parallel sides – a τραπέζια (''trapezia'' literally "a table", itself from τετράς (''tetrás''), " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crossed Ladder Problem, Extended To Triangles
{{disambiguation ...
Crossed may refer to: * ''Crossed'' (comics), a 2008 comic book series by Garth Ennis * ''Crossed'' (novel), a 2010 young adult novel by Ally Condie * "Crossed" (''The Walking Dead''), an episode of the television series ''The Walking Dead'' See also *Cross (other) A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars. Cross or The Cross may also refer to: Religion * Christian cross, the basic symbol of Christianity * Cross necklace, a necklace worn by adherents of the Christian r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folding Paper Into Thirds
Fold, folding or foldable may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Fold'' (album), the debut release by Australian rock band Epicure *Fold (poker), in the game of poker, to discard one's hand and forfeit interest in the current pot * Above the fold and below the fold, the positioning of news items on a newspaper's front page according to perceived importance * Paper folding, or ''origami'', the art of folding paper Science, technology, and mathematics Biology *Protein folding, the physical process by which a polypeptide folds into its characteristic and functional three-dimensional structure ** Folding@home, a powerful distributed-computing project for simulating protein folding *Fold coverage, quality of a DNA sequence * Skin fold, an area of skin that folds Computing * Fold (higher-order function), a type of programming operation on data structures * fold (Unix), a computer program used to wrap lines to fit in a specified width *Folding (DSP implementation), a transfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optic Equation
In number theory, the optic equation is an equation that requires the sum of the reciprocals of two positive integers ''a'' and ''b'' to equal the reciprocal of a third positive integer ''c'':Dickson, L. E., ''History of the Theory of Numbers, Volume II: Diophantine Analysis'', Chelsea Publ. Co., 1952, pp. 688–691. :\frac+\frac=\frac. Multiplying both sides by ''abc'' shows that the optic equation is equivalent to a Diophantine equation (a polynomial equation in multiple integer variables). Solution All solutions in integers ''a, b, c'' are given in terms of positive integer parameters ''m, n, k'' by :a=km(m+n) , \quad b=kn(m+n), \quad c=kmn where ''m'' and ''n'' are coprime. Appearances in geometry The optic equation, permitting but not requiring integer solutions, appears in several contexts in geometry. In a bicentric quadrilateral, the inradius ''r'', the circumradius ''R'', and the distance ''x'' between the incenter and the circumcenter are related by Fuss' the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pythagorean Triple
A Pythagorean triple consists of three positive integers , , and , such that . Such a triple is commonly written , and a well-known example is . If is a Pythagorean triple, then so is for any positive integer . A primitive Pythagorean triple is one in which , and are coprime (that is, they have no common divisor larger than 1). For example, is a primitive Pythagorean triple whereas is not. A triangle whose sides form a Pythagorean triple is called a Pythagorean triangle, and is necessarily a right triangle. The name is derived from the Pythagorean theorem, stating that every right triangle has side lengths satisfying the formula a^2+b^2=c^2; thus, Pythagorean triples describe the three integer side lengths of a right triangle. However, right triangles with non-integer sides do not form Pythagorean triples. For instance, the triangle with sides a=b=1 and c=\sqrt2 is a right triangle, but (1,1,\sqrt2) is not a Pythagorean triple because \sqrt2 is not an integer. Moreover, 1 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quartic Equation
In mathematics, a quartic equation is one which can be expressed as a ''quartic function'' equaling zero. The general form of a quartic equation is :ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e=0 \, where ''a'' ≠ 0. The quartic is the highest order polynomial equation that can be solved by radicals in the general case (i.e., one in which the coefficients can take any value). History Lodovico Ferrari is attributed with the discovery of the solution to the quartic in 1540, but since this solution, like all algebraic solutions of the quartic, requires the solution of a cubic to be found, it couldn't be published immediately. The solution of the quartic was published together with that of the cubic by Ferrari's mentor Gerolamo Cardano in the book '' Ars Magna'' (1545). The proof that this was the highest order general polynomial for which such solutions could be found was first given in the Abel–Ruffini theorem in 1824, proving that all attempts at solving the higher order polynomials would ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980.''From Usenet to CoWebs: interacting with social information spaces'', Christopher Lueg, Danyel Fisher, Springer (2003), , Users read and post messages (called ''articles'' or ''posts'', and collectively termed ''news'') to one or more topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSs, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.The jargon file v4.4.7 , Jargon File Archive. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed-form Expression
In mathematics, a closed-form expression is a mathematical expression that uses a finite number of standard operations. It may contain constants, variables, certain well-known operations (e.g., + − × ÷), and functions (e.g., ''n''th root, exponent, logarithm, trigonometric functions, and inverse hyperbolic functions), but usually no limit, differentiation, or integration. The set of operations and functions may vary with author and context. Example: roots of polynomials The solutions of any quadratic equation with complex coefficients can be expressed in closed form in terms of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root extraction, each of which is an elementary function. For example, the quadratic equation :ax^2+bx+c=0, is tractable since its solutions can be expressed as a closed-form expression, i.e. in terms of elementary functions: :x=\frac. Similarly, solutions of cubic and quartic (third and fourth degree) equations can be expresse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quartic Equation
In mathematics, a quartic equation is one which can be expressed as a ''quartic function'' equaling zero. The general form of a quartic equation is :ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e=0 \, where ''a'' ≠ 0. The quartic is the highest order polynomial equation that can be solved by radicals in the general case (i.e., one in which the coefficients can take any value). History Lodovico Ferrari is attributed with the discovery of the solution to the quartic in 1540, but since this solution, like all algebraic solutions of the quartic, requires the solution of a cubic to be found, it couldn't be published immediately. The solution of the quartic was published together with that of the cubic by Ferrari's mentor Gerolamo Cardano in the book '' Ars Magna'' (1545). The proof that this was the highest order general polynomial for which such solutions could be found was first given in the Abel–Ruffini theorem in 1824, proving that all attempts at solving the higher order polynomials would ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
