full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Gordon Hamilton: Can you solve the Mondrian squares riddle?
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s abstract, rectangular paintings inspired mimtaiethnacas to create a two-fold challenge. First, we must completely cover a square canvas with non-overlapping rectangles. All must be uuniqe, so if we use a 1x4, we can’t use a 4x1 in another spot, but a 2x2 rectangle would be fine.
Let’s try that. Say we have a canvas measuring 4x4. We can’t chop it directly in half, since that would give us identical rlctngeeas of 2x4. But the next closest option - 3x4 and 1x4 - works.
Open Cloze
Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s abstract, rectangular paintings inspired ______________ to create a two-fold challenge. First, we must completely cover a square canvas with non-overlapping rectangles. All must be ______, so if we use a 1x4, we can’t use a 4x1 in another spot, but a 2x2 rectangle would be fine.
Let’s try that. Say we have a canvas measuring 4x4. We can’t chop it directly in half, since that would give us identical __________ of 2x4. But the next closest option - 3x4 and 1x4 - works.
Solution
- unique
- rectangles
- mathematicians
Original Text
Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s abstract, rectangular paintings inspired mathematicians to create a two-fold challenge. First, we must completely cover a square canvas with non-overlapping rectangles. All must be unique, so if we use a 1x4, we can’t use a 4x1 in another spot, but a 2x2 rectangle would be fine.
Let’s try that. Say we have a canvas measuring 4x4. We can’t chop it directly in half, since that would give us identical rectangles of 2x4. But the next closest option - 3x4 and 1x4 - works.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
Important Words
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