# Problems from Another Time

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

A person has a circular yard that is 150 ft. in diameter, and wishes a walk of equal width made round it within the fence...
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. 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 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.

In a certain lake, swarming with red geese, the tip of a lotus bud was seen to extend a span [9 inches] above the surface of the water.
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?