# 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.
There are two numbers whose sum equals the difference of their squares.
A four-sided town measures 1100 feet on one side and 1000 feet on the other side, on one edge 600 and the other edge 600.
A series of circles have their centers on an equilateral hyperbola and pass through its center. Show that their envelope is a lemniscate.
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?
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.