| Math Mojo - Making Math Meaningful |
Connecting circles or points with straight, continuous lines
The main lesson of this page is to pay attention to wording. Most people don't differentiate between "circle" and "point" when they present this kind of puzzle. You can use that to your advantage.
For instance, you will most often hear the puzzle presented like this:
"There are 9 circles, arranged in the shape of a square. Can you connect them with only 4 straight lines, without picking your pencil up from the paper?"
Try it on paper before you click to the puzzle.
To see the puzzle, click here.
After you have tried it, try the next one, which is basically the same puzzle, but using only 3 lines to connect the circles. Try to figure that out before you click on this link. Click here to check the solution to 3 lines. That is where the real lesson of the puzzle is.
(in these puzzles, the word "line" is meant to mean "line segment".)
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