Triangle calculations

[News]

OK, far too many brain cells have died.

Right angle triangle thus :

/| / | / | / |3' / | / | /......| / x | / |3' / | /__________| 5'

Base is 5 feet, total height 6 feet. How do I calculate length x ?

[newshound]

Similar triangles, the one outside is exactly twice the size of the one inside. You just havn't really drawn it to scale.

[charles]

x/3 = 5/6, so x = 15/6 = 2.5ft

[News]

Thank you both. Mental block :-)

Drawing to scale is not easy with ASCII art, but at least you both knew what I was trying to achieve.

[The Medway Handyman]

Easy. You get two red Indian females to sit on a buffalo hide on the 6' and 5' sides, and a fatter red Indian female to sit on a hippopotamus hide on the remaining side.

Now weigh each of them.

The Squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the Squaws on the other two hides.

I'll get my coat.......

[News]

Yes, thank you Dave, I did get that one without scrolling down :-)

Even more impressive, I do actually remember Pythagoras, and his theorem is one of those things that I have actually found useful in everyday life, post school.

[bert]

My maths teacher taught us the same jingle. Where did you go to school?

[Ian Jackson]

In message , bert writes

Of course, the geography teacher or the biology teacher would have pointed out that obtaining a hippopotamus hide in North America might prove somewhat difficult.

Shall I get my coat too?

[polygonum]

Pretty bloomin' pointless too. You could sit in your hippopotamus hide for weeks and never see a single one.

[Ian Jackson]

So true.

[Adrian]

It would now. That's because they've all been killed for their pelts.

[The Medway Handyman]

Strange how what you thought was boring becomes useful later. I often use the 3,4,5 triangle thingy when building decks to make sure bits are square.

I also had to rack my brains a bit when I wanted to calculate the height an awning had to be at so the front was 2m off the ground and maintain a

15 degree slope. Tan 15.

Some officers have, curly auburn hair, till old age.

[The Medway Handyman]

East London. But I got it from a radio show, possibly I'm sorry I'll read that again.

[The Medway Handyman]

OMG! Is that how they make Hippo Bags?

[spuorgelgoog]

I thought it was Darbishire trying to understand Bronwich's notes of Mr Wilkin's maths lessons in Jennings in Particular?

The story of which that is the punchline is:

There was an Indian Chief, and he had three squaws, and kept them in three teepees. When he would come home late from hunting, he would not know which teepee contained which squaw, being dark and all. He went hunting one day, and killed a hippopotamus, a bear, and a buffalo. He put the a hide from each animal into a different teepee, so that when he came home late, he could feel inside the teepee and he would know which squaw was inside. Well after about a year, all three squaws had children. The squaw on the bear had a baby boy, the squaw on the buffalo hide had a baby girl. But the squaw on the hippopotamus had a girl and a boy. So what is the moral of the story?

Owain

[Ian Jackson]

Some people have curly black hair, though painted brown. (sides are perpendicular, hypotenuse and base).

[Brian Gaff]

Yes, I remember those little jingles. The problem is that one forgets the actual application of it and which one to use. Brian

[Jethro_uk]

Jennings and Derbyshire (c) 195x ....

[Jethro_uk]

Linbury Court ?

[Johny B Good]

Not so fast there, Jimbob! You forgot the bit about using the cube root of each squaw's weight in order to correct your scaling back to linear quantities. :-)

In any case, this is merely a simple scaling problem, no need to invoke Pythagorus' theorem. The hypotenuse in Graeme's example, btw, works out to 7 foot 9.723 inches in length and that too will be halved in size.