I must admit that I am addicted to triangle shearing problems . I've written about them before, and will be revisiting them soon in my City College geometry class. I mention this because several weeks ago, I encountered a problem in the LinkedIn feed of mathematics educator Continue Reading ››
Tag Archives: area
Some Triangle Shearing Investigations
When I taught a geometry methods course at City College last fall, I devoted an entire class to investigating area. We focused on problems where triangles were sheared, transforming into new triangles, but maintaining their area. The two Web Sketchpad activities that follow introduce shearing and present a problem with a surprising result … Continue Reading ››
Maximizing Triangle Area
In the February 1954 issue of Mathematics Teacher, Paul C. Clifford describes an optimization problem from his trigonometry class. Of all isosceles triangles ABC with sides AB and BC of length 12, which one has the maximal area? Clifford told his class that an exact solution to the question required calculus. One student, … Continue Reading ››