Question

A piece of wire 26 m long is cut into two pieces. one piece is bent into a square and the other is bent into an equilateral triangle. (a) how much wire should be used for the square in order to maximize the total area? 26 m (b) how much wire should be used for the square in order to minimize the total area?

Answer 1

a) All the 26m should be used to bent into a square to maximize the total area (= 42.25 m2) b) 1.4136m should be bent into a square and the rest (= 24.586m) should be bent into an equilateral triangle to minimize the total area (= 29.0835m2)