Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 29 Oct 2024, 14:19
I got this from the Andy Math channel on YouTube. In a. we are asked to find the combined area of the two squares.
We have no information about the relative sizes, so how can we solved this? The YouTube video shows that is possible, by doing the calculations.
However the original statement of the problem already implies the sizes don't matter. So there is no need for calculation. We can just adjust the diagram as shown in b.,so that the big square has side length r, and the small square 0. Now we see the required sum of areas is r2 + 0 = r2. Simples!
Not enough information?
I got this from the Andy Math channel on YouTube. In a. we are asked to find the combined area of the two squares.
We have no information about the relative sizes, so how can we solved this? The YouTube video shows that is possible, by doing the calculations.
However the original statement of the problem already implies the sizes don't matter. So there is no need for calculation. We can just adjust the diagram as shown in b.,so that the big square has side length r, and the small square 0. Now we see the required sum of areas is r2 + 0 = r2. Simples!