You have an equilateral triangle you want to wrap with a square piece of paper. If the triangle has unit sides, what is the smallest square piece of paper that can be folded around the triangle such that both the front and back sides of the triangle are completely covered by the paper?

This is way messier than it looks.

I got an estimate using sketchpad of about 1.1

The triangle is rotated 15 degrees and inscribed in a square (that isn't big enough) then the square is enlarged until the 3 overlaps meet at a point along the diagonal of the square.

 

Posted by Jer on 2005-10-11 19:15:06