182.--THE GARDEN PUZZLE.

Professor Rackbrain tells me that he was recently smoking a friendly

pipe under a tree in the garden of a country acquaintance. The garden

was enclosed by four straight walls, and his friend informed him that he

had measured these and found the lengths to be 80, 45, 100, and 63 yards

respectively. "Then," said the professor, "we can calculate the exact

area of the garden." "Impossible," his host replied, "because you can

get an infinite number of different shapes with those four sides." "But

you forget," Rackbrane said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that you told

me once you had planted this tree equidistant from all the four corners

of the garden." Can you work out the garden's area?

Amusements in Mathematics · 第 212 / 970 题