“Puzzles are made of the things that the mathematician, no less than the child, plays with, and dreams and wonders about, for they are made of things and circumstances of the world he [or she] lives in.”
—Edward Kasner
Long ages ago, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time played with a children’s puzzle.
The puzzle was called “The Ivory Challenge”—or something like that, translations vary. Ostomachion in Greek. Fourteen ivory polygons (flat shapes with straight sides) were supposed to fit into a square box.
Archimedes solved that puzzle. But like any good mathematician, he didn’t stop there. The solution to any puzzle is only the beginning, a doorway to further adventures.
So Archimedes asked himself one of the big questions of mathematics: “How many ways?”
The Ostomachion is a rather complex puzzle, and our students may struggle to figure out where to start. One of the classic tools in any mathematician’s toolbox is to make it simpler. So let’s begin our own investigation with a simpler challenge:
- How many ways can you bisect a square?
