justpuzzles

Five triangles

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Imagine a right triangle (formerly called a rectangled triangle). One side adjacent to the right angle is twice as long as the other. You will not find it very difficult to construct a square from 4 of these triangles.

But is it possible to construct a square from 5 of these triangles? And from 6? From 7?

These problems are derived from ‘doordenkertje’ 12 in the November 1969 issue of ‘Pythagoras’, a Dutch magazine in recreational mathematics. You will need some elementary geometry knowledge to solve this problem.

You can check your solution here

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