# Problems from Another Time

Individual problems from throughout mathematics history, as well as articles that include problem sets for students.

A man agreed to pay for 13 valuable houses worth $5000 each, what the last would amount to, reckoning 7 cents for the first, 4 times 7 cents for the second, and so on, increasing the price 4 times on each to the last. Now there is a wall 5 feet thick and two rats tunnel from opposite sides. A father left$20,000 to be divided among his four sons ages 6, 8, 10, and 12 years respectively so that each share placed at 4 1/2 compounded interest should amount to the same value when its possessor becomes the age 21.
How a translation of Peano's counterexample to the 'theorem' that a zero Wronskian implies linear dependence can help your differential equations students
Given a right triangle where you know the length of the base and the sum of the perpendicular side and the hypotenuse.

A tree 100 units high is 200 units distant from a well; from this tree one monkey climbs down and goes to the well...
If 40 oranges are worth 60 apples, and 75 apples are worth 7 dozen peaches, and 100 peaches are worth 1 box of grapes and three boxes of grapes are worth 40 pounds of pecans, how many peaches can be bought for 100 oranges?
Discussion of 15th century French manuscript, with translation of its problems, including one with negative solutions
One hundred men besieged in a castle, have sufficient food to allow each one bread to the weight of 14 lot a day for ten months.
What will the diameter of a sphere be, when its volume and surface area are expressed by the same number?