### Rotating Triangle

What happens to the perimeter of triangle ABC as the two smaller circles change size and roll around inside the bigger circle?

### Doodles

A 'doodle' is a closed intersecting curve drawn without taking pencil from paper. Only two lines cross at each intersection or vertex (never 3), that is the vertex points must be 'double points' not 'triple points'. Number the vertex points in any order. Starting at any point on the doodle, trace it until you get back to where you started. Write down the numbers of the vertices as you pass through them. So you have a [not necessarily unique] list of numbers for each doodle. Prove that 1)each vertex number in a list occurs twice. [easy!] 2)between each pair of vertex numbers in a list there are an even number of other numbers [hard!]

### Russian Cubes

How many different cubes can be painted with three blue faces and three red faces? A boy (using blue) and a girl (using red) paint the faces of a cube in turn so that the six faces are painted in order 'blue then red then blue then red then blue then red'. Having finished one cube, they begin to paint the next one. Prove that the girl can choose the faces she paints so as to make the second cube the same as the first.

# Knight Defeated

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Christina sent us her solution:

A knight can't make a tour on a $2\times n$ board, for any $n$, because it must go into and out of a corner square, and it can't do this without going back on itself.

On the $3\times 4$ grid, we must use a path from the loop JAGIBHJ and a path from the loop KDFLCEK. But they only link up between J and C, and between B and K. So the path must start at a neighbour of J, B, K or C, follow round that loop, switch to the other loop and follow round that. Obviously the path can go round the loop in either direction. So there are $16$ possible tours:

HJAGIBKDFLCE

HJAGIBKECLFD

HBIGAJCEKDFL

HBIGAJCLFDKE

AGIBHJCEKDFL

AGIBHJCLFDKE

IGAJHBKECLFD

IGAJHBKDFLCE

ECLFDKBIGAJH

ECLFDKBHJAGI

EKDFLCJHBIGA

EKDFLCJAGIBH

DFLCEKBIGAJH

DFLCEKBHJAGI

LFDKECJAGIBH

LFDKECJHBIGA

Since it's not possible to get from the finish directly back to the start in any of these tours, there is no circuit.