On Friday 27 February 2009, rwg@sdf.lonestar.org wrote: [Asimov:]
(It'd be fun to make a whole collection of problems that smart and/or knowledgeable people tend to do poorly on: an anti-intelligence or anti-aptitude test if you will.)
[Gosper:]
http://www.tweedledum.com/rwg/pecu.JPG is a variation on one we did here a few yrs back. Illustration by a 13 yr old who then solved it in the most calculus-intensive way possible.
What's the *least* calculus-intensive way possible? (Or at least the easiest way possible.) I did it by saying d(area)/d(normal) = boundary_length, as it were (the derivatives being easier to calculate than the things they're derivatives of); the resulting answer doesn't seem quite simple enough for there to be a substantially more elegant solution, but perhaps either my answer or my intuition is wrong. -- g