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Can you find rectangles where the value of the area is the same as the value of the perimeter?
A jigsaw where pieces only go together if the fractions are equivalent.
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?
Can you find the area of a parallelogram defined by two vectors?
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?
The Egyptians expressed all fractions as the sum of different unit fractions. The Greedy Algorithm might provide us with an efficient way of doing this.
Explore when it is possible to construct a circle which just touches all four sides of a quadrilateral.
Which has the greatest area, a circle or a square inscribed in an isosceles, right angle triangle?
A napkin is folded so that a corner coincides with the midpoint of an opposite edge . Investigate the three triangles formed .
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.
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.
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?
Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?
Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?
It is known that the area of the largest equilateral triangular section of a cube is 140sq cm. What is the side length of the cube? The distances between the centres of two adjacent faces of. . . .
What is the same and what is different about these circle questions? What connections can you make?
Can all unit fractions be written as the sum of two unit fractions?
Can you see how to build a harmonic triangle? Can you work out the next two rows?
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. . . .
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?
If it takes four men one day to build a wall, how long does it take 60,000 men to build a similar wall?
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?
Think of two whole numbers under 10. Take one of them and add 1. Multiply by 5. Add 1 again. Double your answer. Subract 1. Add your second number. Add 2. Double again. Subtract 8. Halve this. . . .
Can you find an efficient method to work out how many handshakes there would be if hundreds of people met?
There are four children in a family, two girls, Kate and Sally, and two boys, Tom and Ben. How old are the children?
Different combinations of the weights available allow you to make different totals. Which totals can you make?
If you have only 40 metres of fencing available, what is the maximum area of land you can fence off?
Triangle ABC is isosceles while triangle DEF is equilateral. Find one angle in terms of the other two.
Five children went into the sweet shop after school. There were choco bars, chews, mini eggs and lollypops, all costing under 50p. Suggest a way in which Nathan could spend all his money.
Each of the following shapes is made from arcs of a circle of radius r. What is the perimeter of a shape with 3, 4, 5 and n "nodes".
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?
Do you know a quick way to check if a number is a multiple of two? How about three, four or six?
How many solutions can you find to this sum? Each of the different letters stands for a different number.
A plastic funnel is used to pour liquids through narrow apertures. What shape funnel would use the least amount of plastic to manufacture for any specific volume ?
Ben passed a third of his counters to Jack, Jack passed a quarter of his counters to Emma and Emma passed a fifth of her counters to Ben. After this they all had the same number of counters.
Four bags contain a large number of 1s, 3s, 5s and 7s. Pick any ten numbers from the bags above so that their total is 37.
According to an old Indian myth, Sissa ben Dahir was a courtier for a king. The king decided to reward Sissa for his dedication and Sissa asked for one grain of rice to be put on the first square. . . .
A 1 metre cube has one face on the ground and one face against a wall. A 4 metre ladder leans against the wall and just touches the cube. How high is the top of the ladder above the ground?
Can you guarantee that, for any three numbers you choose, the product of their differences will always be an even number?
What is the smallest number with exactly 14 divisors?
Can you find six numbers to go in the Daisy from which you can make all the numbers from 1 to a number bigger than 25?
A game for 2 or more people, based on the traditional card game Rummy. Players aim to make two `tricks', where each trick has to consist of a picture of a shape, a name that describes that shape, and. . . .
What is the greatest volume you can get for a rectangular (cuboid) parcel if the maximum combined length and girth are 2 metres?
Can you arrange these numbers into 7 subsets, each of three numbers, so that when the numbers in each are added together, they make seven consecutive numbers?
Here's a chance to work with large numbers...
In a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses, how many winning lines can you make?
Chris is enjoying a swim but needs to get back for lunch. If she can swim at 3 m/s and run at 7m/sec, how far along the bank should she land in order to get back as quickly as possible?
How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?
The diagonals of a trapezium divide it into four parts. Can you create a trapezium where three of those parts are equal in area?
Can you describe this route to infinity? Where will the arrows take you next?