Intro Question:
Farmer John has a problem. You see, he needs to make a fence to house his new Alpaca, Alphonse.
He wants Alphonse to have as much space as possible to run around, to frolic, to commune with nature and experience life (within the confines of the pen, of course)
Your string represents the fencing available.
Farmer John, while into new ideas, still believes that fences should have only right angles. So there's that.
What is the maximum amount of area that your string can contain, given the constraints?
How do you KNOW that's the right answer?
You've convinced yourself, and hopefully your group of the right answer. What if you had to convince someone else, outside the group? What if you had to convince your mortal enemy? What evidence could you use to show that you were right and that your enemy cannot stand up to your logical rigor?
Class Today:
All notes from Class today are in the powerpoint found below on this page. This is atypical; I do not normally care for powerpoints, but this one lends itself nicely to the information. Of course, the real information is WHY we ended up where we are today.
My side notes for the class are also attached below as a .pdf.