GRE前夕,不寫太詳細的Blog文。今天從
鄭院長的網站見到兩條關於圓規直尺作圖的問題,在這裏以「高考純數卷」形式講講吧。中四或以上的學生已經有足夠的幾何常識,可嘗試逐part完成。
a) You are given a unit length (a line segment of length 1) and two segments with lengths
x and
y respectively. By considering two similar triangles, show that one can construct a segment with length
xy.
b) You are given a unit length and a segment with length
x. By considering a circle with diameter
x+1, show that one can construct a segment with length

.
c) "Quadrature" a plane figure means to construct a square where its area is equal to that of the plane figure, with use of straight edge and compasses only.
i) You are given a rectangle with sides
x and
y respectively. Show that you can quadrature the rectangle.
ii) You are given an arbitrary triangle. Show that you can quadrature the triangle. (Hint: by i), you should already know how to quadrature any given parallelogram.)
順帶一提,quadrature a given circle(即中文的「化圓為方」)是不可能做到的。