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Problems from Another Time

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

Deer in the City
Now there are 100 deer [being distributed] in a city. If one household has one deer there is a remainder...Find the number of households in the city.
Cherry Blossom Poetry
On a day in spring a boy has gathered cherry blossoms under a cherry tree. Nearby a poet is reading some of his poems aloud. As he reads, the boy counts out the cherry blossoms, one blossom for each word of a poem.
A Successful Businessman
A certain merchant increases the value of his estate by 1/3...
Estate Will
A father wills his estate valued at $40,000 to his three children. Before the settlement one of the children dies. What should the other two receive?
Pyramid Calculation
Given a pyramid 300 cubits high, with a square base 500 cubits to a side, determine the distance from the center of any side of the base to the apex.
A Wealth of Plantains
Twenty-three weary travelers entered a delightful forest. There they found 63 numerically equal piles of plantain fruit.
The Door and the Rod
Given a door and a measuring rod of unknown dimensions, the rod is used to measure the door.
Steamboat
The cost per hour of running a certain steamboat is proportional to the cube of its velocity in still water. At what speed should it be run to make a trip up stream against a four-mile current most economically?
Japanese Temple Problem
Given two circles tangent to each other and to a common line, determine a relationship between the radii and the distance between the tangent points.
Peano on Wronskians: A Translation - Survey of Infinitesimal Analysis
How a translation of Peano's counterexample to the 'theorem' that a zero Wronskian implies linear dependence can help your differential equations students

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