Turn a Pentagon into a 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

• Solution: 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.
  

Links

• MathWorld showcases many more interesting dissections

References

• (Dudeney 1917), (G. N. Frederickson, Hinged dissections: swinging & twisting 2002)