Thursday, May 26, 2011

A matter of balance



Which two objects (two balls, two fishes, two triangles, two bars, or a combination thereof) must be hanged in the place of the question mark in order to keep the system in balance? (Ignore the weight of threads, but do not ignore the weight of the bars.)

[Source: Kurzweil Duch Mathe, Johannes Lehmann]

7 comments:

e said...

I remember doing these kinds of problems for physics last semester. They involved solving a sequences of simple equations. But now I don't remember how I did it. It's been almost a full year since I took physics.

e said...

(And of course in the book they told you exactly how much everything weighed so that students shouldn't need to--gasp--think abstractly.

Anarchist Chossid said...

you don't need to know any physics to solve this. it's a 3rd grade algebra problem.

e said...

must be a very smart third grader.

Anarchist Chossid said...

it is just basic algebra.

Isaac said...

i have a triangle and a fish

Anonymous said...

Two fish