# Problems from Another Time

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

I am a brazen lion; my spouts are my 2 eyes, my mouth, and the flat of my foot. My right eye fills a jar in 2 days, my left eye in 3, and my foot in 4.
Chuquet claimed that if given positive numbers a, b, c, d then (a + b) / (c + d) lies between a/c and b/d. Is he correct? Prove your answer
A woodcutter starts to fell a tree 4 feet in diameter, and cuts half way through. One face of the cut is horizontal, and the other face is inclined to the horizontal at an angle of 45 degrees. Find the volume of the wood cut out.
Determine a number having remainders 2, 3, 2 when divided by 3, 5, 7 respectively.
Given a wooden log of diameter 2 feet 5 inches from which a 7 inch thick board is to be cut, what is the maximum possible width of the board?
The authors recount the 'great tale' of Napier's and Burgi's parallel development of logarithms and urge you to use it in class.
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. An oblong garden is a half yard longer than it is wide and consists entirely of a gravel walk... 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.
Discussion of 15th century French manuscript, with translation of its problems, including one with negative solutions