Stochastic Geometry

Reddit Math Puzzle

Posted in General, Mathematics by Mark Dennehy on October 12, 2009

RedditMathPuzzle110909

So it’s not nonlinear math, but this made for a fun five minutes over Sunday morning coffee. There’s a number of ways of solving it, I went for the geometric one myself but the same answer comes out in the end for all of them, hopefully :) And it’s nice to think you could still pass the Leaving Cert if you had to sit it again tomorrow, so hooray for Reddit.

Enjoy over coffee today! (My scribbled answer after the break…)

11102009192a

3.05572809 (or for those who like a more neat answer, 4(3-√5) )

2 Responses

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  1. Joe said, on October 13, 2009 at 21:58

    Quadratic Equation? Bleh!
    Complete the square. You’ll end up with much less, uh, cruft.

  2. Sertrbl said, on November 13, 2009 at 17:13

    is it odd that that was exactly the way I planned on solving?


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