Re: Geometry problem, stuck

[Dan Cass]

> On Apr 27, 2008 1:26 PM CT, Dan wrote:
>
> > the sides of a triangle are 15, 20, 25. find the
> > length of the shortest side. really stuck on this.
> > any help?
>
> Hint: To figure out which number out of 15, 20, and
> 25 is
> the smallest, punch yourself in the face that many
> times
> and decide which hurts less.

Of course that's a joke answer.
But note that if 15, 20, 25 are each divided by 5,
then one gets 3, 4, 5.
Then by inspection one can determine the smallest
of these numbers.

One must keep track of which of 15, 20, 25 go
with which of the "reduced" numbers 3, 4, 5,
but other than this it appears an easy problem.

[polygonum]

I know another problem.

The sides of a triangle are 15, 20, 25. find the length of the longest
side.

[Dan Cass]

Though challenging, this can be solved using the same
approach.
Find the quotients of 300/x for the three numbers.
These are respectively 20, 15, and 12.
By inspection the smallest is 12.
So the biggest of 15, 20, 25 must be the number which,
when divided into 300, gave 12.