For his 13th birthday, Adam was allowed to travel down to Sarah's Sporting Goods store to purchase a brand new fishing pole. With great excitement he selected a 5-foot, one-piece fiberglass "Trout Troller 570" fishing pole.
When it came time for Adam to return home, he walked to the nearest bus stop. The bus appeared, but the driver reported that Adam could not board the bus with the fishing pole. Objects longer than 4 feet were not allowed on the bus. Adam remained at the bus stop holding his beautiful 5-foot Trout Troller.
Sarah, who had observed the whole ordeal, rushed up and said, "We'll get your fishing pole on the bus!" Sure enough, when the same bus and the same driver returned, Adam boarded the bus with his fishing pole and the driver welcomed him aboard with a smile.
How was Sarah able to have Adam board the bus with his 5-foot fishing pole, without breaking or bending the bus-line rules or the pole?
I'm stumped. Any ideas?
3 comments:
How tall was Adam? Did they stick the pole down his back?
Hmmm! It didn't say how tall he was... but if he's 13 he could be right around 5 feet, I would think. Sticking the rod down his back sounds like a really plausible answer to me!!
Okay, Eric cracked the fishing pole riddle! So, this is how the 5-foot fishing pole got on the bus:
1) Think of a right triangle. Imagine one leg is 3-feet and one leg is 4-feet.
The length of the hypotonuse (long side) is unknown.
2) However, now remember that -- according to the pythagorean theorem --
A-squared + B-squared = C-squared, on a right triangle. So, if we square the two legs of our triangle, we get: 9 + 16. We solve this addition problem and get 25... which leads us to conclude that they hypotonuse of our triangle = the square root of 25 (that is, 5-feet).
3) Now we know we are dealing with a right triangle and the legs are 3-feet and 4-feet with a hypotonuse of 5-feet.
4) Now think of a box that is a 3-foot x 4-foot rectangle. How long is the diagonal of the box? Well, it is the same as the hypotonuse of our 3-foot x 4-foot right triangle... since a rectangular box is really just two right triangles smashed together and sharing a hypotonuse. In otherwords, we can have a box that is 3-feet x 4-feet which has a 5-foot diagonal span.
4) Thus, the 5-foot fishing pole would fit in a 3- x 4-foot box as long as it was lying diagonally! And since any object less than 5-feet tall is allowed on the bus, the fishing pole could now come on the bus. The box is only 4-feet tall!
Cool, huh?!
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