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Problems from Another Time

Individual problems from throughout mathematics history, as well as articles that include problem sets for students.

A Room with a View
Find the height of a window.
A Swarm of Bees
The square root of half the number of bees in a swarm has flown out upon a jessamine bush; 8/9 of the swarm has remained behind.
Logarithms: The Early History of a Familiar Function - The Challenges of Parallel Insights in the History of Mathematics
The authors recount the 'great tale' of Napier's and Burgi's parallel development of logarithms and urge you to use it in class.
Pigs in a Blanket?
Three hundred pigs are to be prepared for a feast.
Age
My age is a number consisting of two digits, 1/7 of this number is a mean proportional between these two digits, and two years hence, my age will be a third proportional to the same two digits, directly as they stand in my present age.
Tree and Vine
A tree is 2 zhang tall and has a circumference of 3 chi. There is a vine that winds seven equally spaced times around the tree and reaches the top. What is the length of the vine?
Peano on Wronskians: A Translation - Acknowledgment and About the Authors
How a translation of Peano's counterexample to the 'theorem' that a zero Wronskian implies linear dependence can help your differential equations students
Circular Cone
The frustum of a circular cone has height 15.
Walk Around the Triangle
If an equilateral triangle whose area is equal to 10,000 square feet be surrounded by a walk of uniform width, and equal to the area of the inscribed circle, what is the width of the walk?
Multiplying Like Rabbits
Assume that the human population after the flood was 6 and that 200 years later the population was 1,000,000. Find the annual rate of growth of the population.

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