Some days
back, walking through the park, I saw a little girl trying to play the see- saw
all by herself. It takes two to see- saw, but here was a girl who was a girl
who was ingenious enough to try and see- saw on her own.
I saw her tying a
number of bricks to one end of the plank to balance her weight at the other.
I curiously noted that she just balanced against sixteen
bricks. When these were fixed to the short end of the plank and I also noticed
that if she were to fix them to the long end of the plank, she only needed
eleven as balance.
I wondered what the girl’s weight. The brick, I could guess
weighed equal to a three quarter brick and three quarter of a pound.
Can you figure it out?
Answer: A brick
weighed 3 Ibs. Therefore, 16 bricks weighed 48 Ibs and 11 bricks 33 Ibs.
Multiplying 48 by 33 and taking the square root we get 39.79. The girl’s weight
must have been about 39.79 Ibs.
