The coke machine in college takes 50 pence pieces. It also takes a certain foreign coin of traditional design. Coins inserted into the machine slide down a chute into the machine and a drink is duly released. How many more revolutions does the foreign coin make over the 50 pence piece going down the chute? N.B. A 50 pence piece is a 7 sided polygon ABCDEFG with rounded edges, obtained by replacing AB with arc centred at E and radius EA; replacing BC with arc centred at F radius FB ...etc..
A and C are the opposite vertices of a square ABCD, and have coordinates (a,b) and (c,d), respectively. What are the coordinates of the vertices B and D? What is the area of the square?
A white cross is placed symmetrically in a red disc with the central square of side length sqrt 2 and the arms of the cross of length 1 unit. What is the area of the disc still showing?
Let $B$ be the origin. Then align the triangles so $A$ is vertically above $B$, so the co-ordinates of $A$ are $(0,a)$.By the right angle $C$ is horizontally across from $B$, so $C$ is $(c,0)$. Then $Q$ is $(\frac{c}{2},\frac{a}{2})$.
By some basic trigonometry we can find the coordinates of $D$, as $BCD$ is an equilateral triangle we know all its angles are $60\circ$ and all its sides are equal. By considering the perpendicular from $BC$ to $D$, we find the horizontal component of $D$ is $d\times cos60$ and the length $BD=d$ is equal to $BC=c$ so $d\times cos60=\frac{c}{2}$. The vertical component is $d\times sin60=c\frac{3^(1/2)}{2}$.
But the vertical component does not matter, the point is that $D$ and $Q$ have the same horizontal component, so a straight line between them will cross through $BC$ and will be vertical, and hence parallel to $BA$