Problems from Another Time

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

The answer to the following question is obtained using as optimum strategy-the farmer is getting the "best deal" possible. Can you figure out the solution strategy?...
The authors recount the 'great tale' of Napier's and Burgi's parallel development of logarithms and urge you to use it in class.
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.
In Archimedes' Book of Lemmas (ca 250), he introduces a figure that, due to its shape, has historically been known as "the shoemaker's knife" or arbelos.
A series of circles have their centers on an equilateral hyperbola and pass through its center. Show that their envelope is a lemniscate.
Problems from a 15th century French manuscript, including one with negative solutions
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?
Now a pile of rice is against a wall, it has a base perimeter of 60 feet and a height of 12 feet.
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. 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.