Apologies in advance if you’re hungover.
A seemingly straightforward shape puzzle is wrecking heads this morning.
The puzzle originated on novate and has been translated by Brightside.
At first glance, it looks simple.
Here are some basic shapes. They’re arranged in this triangle.
That’s all grand, we’re following.
But then they’re scurried around and suddenly there’s an extra cell.
The lined background indicates that the area is apparently the same – so where is the extra space coming from?
Apparently only the most observant of people can solve it.
The answer is so much simpler than expected.
Brightside explains:
“In reality, this is not an optical illusion, but a really interesting task. The areas of the colored pieces are of course equal (32 cells), but even if both figures look like triangles of 13×5, it isn’t so. In fact, they have different areas (S 13×5 = 32.5 cells). So the mystery of the puzzle is that the first figure called a triangle is, in fact, a concave quadrangle.”
Which in layman’s terms means the second triangle is a smidge larger than the first.
Still, this should occupy some tired heads today!
