Proof

More Handshake Problems

Last week we looked at problems about counting diagonals in a polygon, and the very similar problem of counting handshakes when everyone in a group shakes with everyone else. In the course of searching for those problems, I also found some very different problems that are also about handshakes. We’ll look at those here, just …

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Proving the Law of Cosines

Last week we looked at several proofs of the Law of Sines. Here we will see a couple proofs of the Law of Cosines; they are more or less equivalent, but take different perspectives – even one from before trigonometry and algebra were invented! Proof using coordinates First, here is a question we looked at …

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Proving the Law of Sines

Two of the most useful facts in trigonometry are the Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines (sometimes called the Sine Rule or Sine Formula, and the Cosine Rule or Cosine Formula). Over the years we were often asked where they come from (or are just asked about them, and reflexively offer proofs). There …

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The Locker Problem

A classic problem we’ve seen hundreds of times involves students opening and closing lockers. I have often told people that, believe it or not, they could find the answer by searching the Ask Dr. Math site for the word “locker”. But I prefer to give them a reference to one of the answers in which …

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False Proofs: Geometry

We have been looking at some classic “false proofs” or “fallacies”, where a seemingly valid proof shows something clearly false to be true. The goal is to learn from these, how to distinguish a valid proof from an error. In a post from last year, What Role Should a Figure Play in a Proof?, I …

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