Monday, 17 December 2007
After a rather belated attempt at my Maths homework, I found out about a really weird Maths question from Trigonometry 3b Homework Ques 3:
You have been tasked to estimate the height of
an old tower. You have only a meter rule and a clinometer (which measures the angle of inclination - you need to read up to understand this term) with you.
In addition, you canot move into the moat as legend has it that a
serpent lurks there (it has destroyed the only bridge leading to the tower.
The above can be depicted in the diagram below...
Describe how you would go about taking measurements and estimating the height of the old tower. You should define your unknowns clearly in you explanation and bonus will be given to strategies with minimal number of measurements taken.
------Ans:------
The first unknown was what a clinometer was. I defined it as a really complicated instrument which I did not even bother to read-up on.
The next unknown was a serpent. I defined it as a really ugly-looking snake-like thingy resembling a cross between the Basilisk and Ms Toh. And since my serpent was a female, she would have lipstick (the brand that Mr Lin uses) on her to seduce the he-serpent.
Also, I would define the 'you' in the question as someone who would be soooooo retarded as to prefer wasting their time on useless things like measuring the height of the tower when I would rather explore it instead.
And with the definitions done, I would move on to go about taking measurement and blah, blah, blah...
STEP 1: Use my cellphone to go online to the babelfish website and translate 'May I please know how tall this tower is Ms Serpent?' from English to Parseltongue.
OR
STEP 1: Goggle 'height of an old tower with serpent in the moat'
OR
STEP 1: Call NASA to take a satellite picture of the tower and use scale reading to determine the height.
Environmentalist Blogged:15:08
Describe how you would go about taking measurements and estimating the height of the old tower. You should define your unknowns clearly in you explanation and bonus will be given to strategies with minimal number of measurements taken.
