Some(?) of the Parts

A circle touches the lines OA, OB and AB where OA and OB are perpendicular. Show that the diameter of the circle is equal to the perimeter of the triangle

Ladder and Cube

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?

At a Glance

The area of a regular pentagon looks about twice as a big as the pentangle star drawn within it. Is it?

Equilateral Areas

Age 14 to 16
Challenge Level

John wrote:

Areas of triangles using triangluar measure generate the square numbers
$1, 4, 9, 16, 25$.
So the two triangles $3$ and $4$ were a fairly special case as $3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2$

But there are others that work such as $5, 12,13$ - that is Pythagorean Triples.

In the original problem $a = 3$ and $b = 4$, so $3^2 + 4^2 = c^2$ giving $c = 5$.

This was essentially just another way of looking at Pythagoras's theorem.

In general:

The formula for the area of an equilateral triangle with side $x$ is

$\text{Area} = \frac{x^2\sqrt3}{4}$

So with the two triangles with sides a and b respectively, we are looking for a third triangle with area:
$$\frac{c^2\sqrt3}{4} = \frac{a^2\sqrt3}{4} + \frac{b^2\sqrt3}{4} $$

This simplifies to give $c^2 = a^2 + b^2$, which is Pythagoras's theorem. This also means that it is possible to find a triangle whose area is the sum of any two triangles, although the sides will not necessarily be integer lengths.

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Some(?) of the Parts

Ladder and Cube

At a Glance

Equilateral Areas

Age 14 to 16Challenge Level

Age 14 to 16
Challenge Level