Time for MATH MINUTE! (provide your favorite theme music
here).
Get out
your paper & pencil, because I have a new puzzle for you!!
PUZZLE #88 Where to build the bridge?
These
puzzles can be worked in more than one way.
A. There are two towns on opposite sides of a river, Uptown and
Downtown. They want to build a bridge and roads so that the people can travel
back and forth easily between the two towns. But they do not have much money,
so they hire a mathematician to calculate where the least expensive place to
build the bridge would be (that is find the shortest route).
Assume
the bridge is to be constructed perpendicular to the river and the river is of
fairly constant width in this location. Also assume that the roads go directly
from the towns to the bridge.
If
you were the mathematician that they hired where would you put the bridge and
why?
B. What
if there are two branches of the river between the towns, how would you find
the shortest route in this case?
Have
fun!
Send
your comments, ideas and solutions before Monday to the email below, and
in the subject line be sure to put
MM in the subject line
Visit
us here online at:
http://www2.potsdam.edu/parksjm/MM1.1.htm
to see the results every Friday.
See you next time on MATH MINUTE! (theme music fades out here).