Mellor’s Garden

April 21st 2006

Today’s Brainteaser.

Old Mellor bought his garden many years ago and got it dirt cheap, probably because it was in the shape of a trapezium. The two diagonals of the trapezium divide the garden into four triangles each for vegetables, fruit, flowers and lawn. Mellor remembers that the area of each triangle is a whole number of square yards, that the lawn is 80 square yards in area, and that the vegetable garden is 45 Square yards in area.

Question. What the fuck is a trapezium?

 Answers in the Comments section please. 10 pounds for the first correct answer. The editor’s decision is final.

Answer to last week’s (April 14th) Brainteaser – Barearse.

Posted in Razzamatazz April 21st, 2006 by Razzamatazz | 4 comments

4 Comments

  1. There are two common definitions of the trapezium. The American definition is a quadrilateral with no parallel sides. The British definition for a trapezium is a quadrilateral with two sides parallel (Bronshtein and Semendyayev 1977, p. 174). Such a trapezium is equivalent to a trapezoid and therefore has area

    A=1/2(a+b)h

    There you go. Simple.

    I have now lost the will to live and my brain hurts. I require a stiff vodka forthwith to recover.

    Please don’t do that to us again. Please.

    Comment by Four Dinners — April 21, 2006 @ 11:31 am

  2. I thought a trapezium was where Trappist monks worked-out.

    Comment by Canute — April 22, 2006 @ 1:38 am

  3. I always thought a trapezium was a place you kept trapezes.

    Comment by helena — April 22, 2006 @ 3:10 am

  4. and there was i thinking a trapezium was four ropes suspended over a garden, each leading to a separate corner. trapeze artists would then do amazing stunts on the trapezes and meet up in the middle.

    i guess i’m not always right.

    Comment by zed — April 22, 2006 @ 3:12 am

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