Given a partition of a square into n triangles of equal area, prove that n is even.

(In reply to re(6): Part I - notation by goFish)

We don't usually solve problems in the queue, and we certainly did not solve this one there.  We do sometimes comment on the deliberations concening a problem when it was under review in the queue -- there is no rule against that.  The Journeymen and Scholars who participate in "moderating" a problem in the queue sometimes do not agree on certain points and express dissenting opinions which may be revealed later.

After reading the page that Mindrod gave the link to, it is now clear to me that the subscript 2 in Mindrod's earlier post was being used to denote 2-adic norm, a concept that is more advanced than we expect to see here.

It is possible to prove rigorously that n=3 is impossible, and probably the same for n=5, without using any advanced concepts. I encourage all to see what they can do in this direction.

Posted by Richard on 2006-02-05 10:27:10