February 24, 2008 by Vurdlak
Hy people! I have just received this image from my brother via gmail. We had very similar mathematical optical illusion at the very start of this website, and I find this kind of illusions hardest to solve. Maybe this should belong to some new category called “Brain Teasers” or “Mighty Puzzles“, still we can probably pull this one of as part of the illusion site as well. So, the question follows: if all the shapes that form these two rectangles below, are of the same shape and areas, how come the overall surface of the second is bigger? Where is the mistake? How do you explain this one?
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This one is a bit weak. It is obvious to the eye that both triangles on the right do not build a straight line. In fact, those are not triangles, they are “quadrangles”.
Hey, Black Mamba, thank you very much. I have a poor English and I was very tired to look for a dictionary. ;)
I think there is hole in the middle - very long and very narrow.
Ok. Here’s where I found the problem.
The top of the quadrangle equals exactly 3 squares. At the cross section of the triangle where the top of the quadrangle meets. it should equal 2. (2+3=5). If you look at the 8×8 square, The cross section of the triangle at that point is clearly less than 2 squares. I think that’s a sound explanation.