A problem from Martin Gardner
Cut the shape into two identical shapes with one cut.
Problem source: Scientific American.
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June 9th, 2010 at 11:19 am
If you fold the shape behind itself along the right edge vertically along the line that runs from the right-most inverted “valley” along the bottom edge and the large bloated green lump on the top, you can then cut the top of the lump off with a 45º cut through both layers. At the top of the cut angle down and cut the figure in half.
This makes two assumptions regarding the rules:
1) It’s ok to fold the shape first.
2) It’s ok for the single cut to not be a straight line.
June 9th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
I’ve tried the “pre” tag in this forum and it doesn’t work, so I can’t draw a picture; I’ll have to describe my solution.
Set up Cartesian coordinates so that, of the 4 lowest points of the shape, the leftmost is (0, 3) and the rightmost is (3, 0). Then my cut goes (2,2)-(3,2)-(3,3).
I found this puzzle easy. I added up the squares to find the whole shape’s area (12) then halved it (6), then looked for a subset of the whole shape that is a hexomino.
It is certainly OK for the single cut to not be a straight line if the puzzle doesn’t state that it must be a straight line.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
One way to get an image in a comment:
1. create the image in the free IrfanView
2. upload it to your free Picasa account
3. go to http://tinyurl.com and make the image url shorter
4. post the image url in your comment
5. when I see it I will change it to an image tag so the image is displayed directly
Example:
1. I created an image to show the solution to today’s puzzle in Irfanview
2. I uploaded the image to my Picasa account
3. Its url was http://lh3.ggpht.com/_8Xxua0dW3UY/TA-gjbW-29I/AAAAAAAAAnk/E5Ia9kloINo/puzzle2s.jpg which tinyurl.com shortened to http://tinyurl.com/2g62pvz
4. So here is the image url: http://tinyurl.com/2g62pvz
5. And here is it changed to an image tag so the image is displayed:
June 9th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
This is what happens if a reader tries to enter an image tag.
((The program swallows the image tag and the image. Nothing is shown.))
June 9th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I installed a plugin from http://trevorfitzgerald.com/wordpress-comment-images/, but it did not work. If it worked it would eliminate the need for step 5 above. It has now been deactivated.