The Fencing Problem.

The first 200 words of this essay...

The Problem

A farmer has exactly 1000 meters of fencing and wants to fence off a plot of level land. She is not concerned about the shape of the plot, but it must have a perimeter of 1000 meters. She wishes to fence off the plot of land, which contains the maximum area.

Investigate the shape or shapes, which could be used to fence in the maximum area using exactly 100 meters of fencing each time. In this investigation I am going to experiment with different shapes and I will find out which shape will give here the maximum area

Investigation

Squares

There are several shapes that I will be able to investigate for this coursework and to start with I will find the area of a square as this is the easiest shape to work out.

Area of a Square = Length x Width

Firstly to find the length of each side I will divide 1000m by 4 which equals 250m. Then to find the area we must square this number.

* 1000 / 4 = 250 meters

* 250 x 250 = 62500 meters ²

Rectangle

The next