Place four pebbles on the sand in the form of a square. Keep adding as few pebbles as necessary to double the area. How many extra pebbles are added each time?
A hallway floor is tiled and each tile is one foot square. Given that the number of tiles around the perimeter is EXACTLY half the total number of tiles, find the possible dimensions of the hallway.
Follow the instructions and you can take a rectangle, cut it into 4 pieces, discard two small triangles, put together the remaining two pieces and end up with a rectangle the same size. Try it!
The $16$ by $9$ rectangle is cut as shown. Rearrange the pieces to form a square. What is the perimeter of the square?
If you liked this problem, here is an NRICH task which challenges you to use similar mathematical ideas.
This problem is taken from the UKMT Mathematical Challenges.