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Keith Miyake  
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 More options Apr 9 1990, 10:00 pm
Newsgroups: sci.math
Followup-To: sci.math
From: miy...@cs.purdue.EDU (Keith Miyake)
Date: 9 Apr 90 19:00:01 GMT
Local: Mon, Apr 9 1990 3:00 pm
Subject: Re: Paper puzzle

In article <9...@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> ph600...@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Sir Six) writes:

>     Given one rectangular sheet of paper of dimensions 8.5"x11.0",
>I want to cut out two identical squares that are as large as
>possible.  (Obiously, they cannot overlap.  Also, no gluing, taping,
>etc. is allowed.)  Can I do better than 5.5"?  If not, can you prove
>it?  If so, what is the best I can do, and how?

>Sir Six

I believe that 5.5" is the maximum dimension for the squares.  Consider
the center point of the paper.  Every solution to the problem (two identical
squares) can be made to be symmetric about that point.

But by observation with a 5.5" square, the only suitable solution occurs when
the square is parallel to the paper, so a larger square will not work.

Keith
--
ARPA:   miy...@cs.purdue.edu
UUCP:   ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!miyake


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