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Rectangle PQRS has X and Y on the edges. Triangles PQY, YRX and XSP have equal areas. Prove X and Y divide the sides of PQRS in the golden ratio.
Find the sum of the series.
What is the same and what is different about these circle questions? What connections can you make?
A mother wants to share a sum of money by giving each of her children in turn a lump sum plus a fraction of the remainder. How can she do this in order to share the money out equally?
In 15 years' time my age will be the square of my age 15 years ago. Can you work out my age, and when I had other special birthdays?
Is it always possible to combine two paints made up in the ratios 1:x and 1:y and turn them into paint made up in the ratio a:b ? Can you find an efficent way of doing this?
A decorator can buy pink paint from two manufacturers. What is the least number he would need of each type in order to produce different shades of pink.
Liam's house has a staircase with 12 steps. He can go down the steps one at a time or two at time. In how many different ways can Liam go down the 12 steps?
Two motorboats travelling up and down a lake at constant speeds leave opposite ends A and B at the same instant, passing each other, for the first time 600 metres from A, and on their return, 400. . . .
What angle is needed for a ball to do a circuit of the billiard table and then pass through its original position?
A circle of radius r touches two sides of a right angled triangle, sides x and y, and has its centre on the hypotenuse. Can you prove the formula linking x, y and r?
All CD Heaven stores were given the same number of a popular CD to sell for £24. In their two week sale each store reduces the price of the CD by 25% ... How many CDs did the store sell at. . . .
What does this number mean ? Which order of 1, 2, 3 and 4 makes the highest value ? Which makes the lowest ?
There are lots of different methods to find out what the shapes are worth - how many can you find?
Two ladders are propped up against facing walls. The end of the first ladder is 10 metres above the foot of the first wall. The end of the second ladder is 5 metres above the foot of the second. . . .
If the hypotenuse (base) length is 100cm and if an extra line splits the base into 36cm and 64cm parts, what were the side lengths for the original right-angled triangle?
A circle is inscribed in a triangle which has side lengths of 8, 15 and 17 cm. What is the radius of the circle?
Can you find the area of a parallelogram defined by two vectors?
The diagonals of a trapezium divide it into four parts. Can you create a trapezium where three of those parts are equal in area?
A napkin is folded so that a corner coincides with the midpoint of an opposite edge . Investigate the three triangles formed .
The area of a square inscribed in a circle with a unit radius is, satisfyingly, 2. What is the area of a regular hexagon inscribed in a circle with a unit radius?
Show that is it impossible to have a tetrahedron whose six edges have lengths 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 units...
In a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses, how many winning lines can you make?
Can you find an efficient method to work out how many handshakes there would be if hundreds of people met?
Investigate how you can work out what day of the week your birthday will be on next year, and the year after...
There is a particular value of x, and a value of y to go with it, which make all five expressions equal in value, can you find that x, y pair ?
There are four children in a family, two girls, Kate and Sally, and two boys, Tom and Ben. How old are the children?
Caroline and James pick sets of five numbers. Charlie chooses three of them that add together to make a multiple of three. Can they stop him?
Square numbers can be represented as the sum of consecutive odd numbers. What is the sum of 1 + 3 + ..... + 149 + 151 + 153?
A 2 by 3 rectangle contains 8 squares and a 3 by 4 rectangle contains 20 squares. What size rectangle(s) contain(s) exactly 100 squares? Can you find them all?
Explore when it is possible to construct a circle which just touches all four sides of a quadrilateral.
What is the largest number which, when divided into 1905, 2587, 3951, 7020 and 8725 in turn, leaves the same remainder each time?
Powers of numbers behave in surprising ways. Take a look at some of these and try to explain why they are true.
A square of area 40 square cms is inscribed in a semicircle. Find the area of the square that could be inscribed in a circle of the same radius.
On the graph there are 28 marked points. These points all mark the vertices (corners) of eight hidden squares. Can you find the eight hidden squares?
Imagine you have a large supply of 3kg and 8kg weights. How many of each weight would you need for the average (mean) of the weights to be 6kg? What other averages could you have?
This shape comprises four semi-circles. What is the relationship between the area of the shaded region and the area of the circle on AB as diameter?
Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?
Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?
Start with two numbers. This is the start of a sequence. The next number is the average of the last two numbers. Continue the sequence. What will happen if you carry on for ever?
Find a cuboid (with edges of integer values) that has a surface area of exactly 100 square units. Is there more than one? Can you find them all?
Manufacturers need to minimise the amount of material used to make their product. What is the best cross-section for a gutter?
What size square corners should be cut from a square piece of paper to make a box with the largest possible volume?
Imagine a large cube made from small red cubes being dropped into a pot of yellow paint. How many of the small cubes will have yellow paint on their faces?
Do you notice anything about the solutions when you add and/or subtract consecutive negative numbers?
Here are four tiles. They can be arranged in a 2 by 2 square so that this large square has a green edge. If the tiles are moved around, we can make a 2 by 2 square with a blue edge... Now try. . . .
A hexagon, with sides alternately a and b units in length, is inscribed in a circle. How big is the radius of the circle?
A country has decided to have just two different coins, 3z and 5z coins. Which totals can be made? Is there a largest total that cannot be made? How do you know?
A spider is sitting in the middle of one of the smallest walls in a room and a fly is resting beside the window. What is the shortest distance the spider would have to crawl to catch the fly?
How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?