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'Tilted Squares' printed from http://nrich.maths.org/
It's easy to work out the areas of squares drawn on a grid if
they are oriented in the usual way:
I wonder if you can find a quick
and easy method to work out the areas of tilted
squares.
Here are some squares with a tilt of 1:
See the hint for suggested ways to calculate their
areas.
Notice anything special about their areas?
Can you predict the areas of other squares with a tilt of 1?
What about squares with a tilt of 2? Or 3? Or 4? Or...?
Notice anything interesting?
Can you make any conjectures about
the areas of tilted squares?
Can you prove your
conjectures?
You might like to use the
interactivity below to help you to draw tilted
squares.
This text is usually replaced by the Flash movie.