Turn a Pentagon into a Square

pentagon to square

You can cut up a pentagon and rearrange the pieces into a perfect square. Below is one way to cut a pentagon into six pieces that can be rearranged into a square.


Steps

  1. Cut out the pieces from the pattern. You can cut them from card stock, cardboard or Foamies™. You might want to somehow mark the back of the pieces to help you reassemble them.
  2. Rearrange the pieces into a square without flipping them over.

Notes

  • how to assemble piecesSolution: here is how you can rearrange the pieces to make a square.
  • This solution is by Henry Ernest Dudeney, a great English inventor of puzzles. Before he found his solution, the simplest solution known took seven cuts.
  • David Hilbert proved that any polygon can be turned into any other by cutting it into a finite number of pieces.

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