# Problems from Another Time

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

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.
I found a stone but did not weigh it; after I added to it 1/7 of its weight and then 1/11 of this new weight, I weighed the total at 1 mina. What was the weight of the stone?
A merchant bought 50,000 pounds of pepper in Portugal for 10,000 scudi and paid a tax of 500 scudi.
Given a pendulum as shown. The height of the pendulum is two units and its horizontal width is 2 units. What is the area of the pendulum?
I wish to find three numbers of such nature that the first and the second with 1/2 of the third makes 20...
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.
The authors recount the 'great tale' of Napier's and Burgi's parallel development of logarithms and urge you to use it in class.
Three people buy wood together. One pays the merchant 5 coins, another 3 coins, and the last 2 coins.
Given a right triangle where you know the length of the base and the sum of the perpendicular side and the hypotenuse.