from Hacker News

A simple geometry question that fools almost everyone

by mywacaday on 2/18/25, 5:23 PM with 14 comments

  • by laserbeam on 2/18/25, 7:22 PM

    This… feels like one of those “99% of people can’t do this basic math trick” memes. I mean, yeah, the puzzles are actually cool, but it feels strange to see such posts on a news website.
  • by idoubtit on 2/18/25, 7:11 PM

    I solved it, to my own surprise, by considering a more general problem. I wanted to get an interval for the solution, so I replaced 3 with y. Now for y=5, the solution is obvious. x(y) is a increasing function and its minimum is... oh!
  • by mywacaday on 2/18/25, 5:23 PM

    The solution is available if you look but this one gave me a good chuckle to myself.
  • by SirMaster on 2/18/25, 7:36 PM

    Not sure why this is supposed to be hard. Apollonius's theorem works as it's intended to here.

    AB^2+AC^2=2AD^2+2BD^2

    https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=5%5E2%2B3%5E2%3D2x%5E2%...