His Homework's a Crazy Hard 100 Year Old Puzzle

Comments · 411

• WR

  @WrathofMath · 1 year ago (edited) · pinned

  There are many subtopics we could branch off to following up this video and introduction of the problems. Perhaps the most interesting is the connection between Mrs. Perkin&apos;s quilt and electric circuits, a connection which is even used in one of Conway&apos;s proofs in the mentioned paper. I don&apos;t know anything about electric circuits though, so have acquired some books to become acquainted! <br><br>Check out my math fashion brand! <a href="https://mathshion.com/">https://mathshion.com/</a><br><br>Join Wrath of Math to get exclusive videos, lecture notes, and more:<br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyEKvaxi8mt9FMc62MHcliw/join">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyEKvaxi8mt9FMc62MHcliw/join</a><br>More Math Chats: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLztBpqftvzxXQDmPmSOwXSU9vOHgty1RO">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLztBpqftvzxXQDmPmSOwXSU9vOHgty1RO</a>

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• KU

  @kurocksong · 1 year ago

  Cut my quilt into pieces. This is my last resort.

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• WR

  @wretchedcats4909 · 10 months ago

  This math problem starting out with how to train your dragon fanfiction is so funny to me.

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• NI

  @nivolord · 1 year ago

  The sad thing is, this would have been a great problem to just have in a classroom setting, where everyone is having a go at it and trying to find the best solution, without any pressure to get the correct answer. Instead, we got this misleading incoherent word salad of a problem, which turned a genuinely interesting and difficult question into a multiple choice, stripping it of any appeal.

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• NE

  @NestorCustodio · 1 year ago

  I love the idea of cutting up an n×n quilt into n² unit squares just to transport it. You&apos;re fully <b>unmaking the quilt</b> just to move it elsewhere and then <b>making a quilt from scratch</b> again.

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• SH

  @sheep177 · 1 year ago

  they even misspelled square

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• CO

  @corlinfardal · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM429MsMC9o&amp;t=52">0:52</a> Hiccup and Astrid are both How to Train Your Dragon characters, and the rest of the text supports that assumption. Hiccup is a boy and Astrid is a girl, the &quot;he&quot; here is Hiccup.

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• SO

  @sol_x_dier · 1 year ago

  What I find really interesting about the miserable attempt to rewrite the problem is that it doesn&apos;t require integer squares, only squares that &quot;contain at least one patch&quot;. &nbsp;It seems any size is permittable as long as it is greater than or equal to 1. &nbsp;In that case, the solution is really just four 6.5x6.5 squares, and we&apos;re done!

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• PR

  @prestwig1 · 1 year ago

  I am truly confused. the quilt will not weigh less if it is cut into &nbsp;pieces.

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• KI

  @kingbeauregard · 1 year ago

  Good lord, it&apos;s hard to imagine a worse written description of the problem. &quot;You have a 13x13 square, and you want to cut it up into squares that all have sides of integer length (1, 2, 3, etc). How do you cut it up to make the least number of squares?&quot; I hope Hiccup and Astrid lose.

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• SH

  @ShowersRainwater · 11 months ago (edited)

  This question reminds me of my favorite economics professor in undergrad. Most of the questions were written this way with tons of useless information. The stories were typically about economics professors at a party where they were smarter than the other professors or about a hypothetical marketplace where beans and weanies were being sold. The in universe lore got pretty complex as the class went on in order for him to fit all the various concepts in.

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• GC

  @gcewing · 1 year ago

  Another problem with the wording of the question is that &quot;at least one square of strategy&quot; doesn&apos;t limit the cuts to patch boundaries. You could have a 1.5 x 1.5 piece that contains one complete square.

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