What is the maximum area that could be enclosed by a piece of string 132 cm long? What shape would that area take?

What is the minimum area that could be enclosed by the same string? What shape will it take?

The maximum area is a circle with a radius of roughly 21 cm. This gives it an area of roughly 1387 cm^2.

The minimum area is zero. There are an infinite number of ways to get this result, but the simplest is to simply fold the string in half and connect the ends.

Posted by friedlinguini on 2002-06-03 06:40:00