Math Blog Elena Stanescu Bellu

I found an interesting geometric puzzle which can be solved visually and also can lead to further investigations. The geometric puzzle was recorded in Plato’s “Meno” dated from the year 830 B.C.E. Meno is a Socratic dialogue with the 2 main speakers...

After exploring some properties of triangular numbers, following the path of the "What if not "strategy, I thought about modifying an attribute and starting a new exploration .
What if instead of triangular numbers I would consider square numbers to investigate ?...

The authors illustrate the "the Prior Effect" -questions posed before solving a problem- with this problem:
A fly and a train are 15 km apart. The train travels toward the fly at a rate of 3km/h. The fly travels toward the train at arate of 7km/h. after hitting the train , it heads back to its starting point. After hitting the starting point , it once more...