Chapman 2 - 156 PME 37 - 2013
Approach 1: Emma was always looking for ways to save money. While in the remnant shop she came across just the material she wanted to make a table-cloth. Unfortunately the piece of material was in the form of a 2m x 5m rectangle and her table was 3m square. She bought it however having decided that the area was more than enough to cover the table. When she got home however she decided she had been a fool because she couldn’t see how to cut up the material to make a square. But just as she despaired she had a brainwave, and with 3 straight cuts, in no time at all, she had 5 pieces which fitted neatly together in a symmetric pattern to form a square using all the material. How did she do it? [p. 23]