Question

Activity #2: Fence It

Directions 2.5 Now imagine that the 40 feet of
fencing is flexible and you could fence off curves
as well as straight lines.
Could you get an even larg
area? How?

Answer 1

Explanation:

With only straight lines, the largest rectangle you could make with 40 feet of fencing would be a 10×10 square, which has an area of 100 ft².

If you used flexible fencing, you could make a circle with perimeter of 40 ft. The diameter would be 40/π ft, and the radius would be 20/π ft. So the area would be:

A = π (20/π ft)²

A = 400/π ft²

A ≈ 127 ft²

So yes, you could get a larger area using flexible fencing.