Piece of String 2 Solution

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Pale has a piece of string 24 centimetres long. He ties the ends together and then lays it out so that it makes a rectangle. He notices that the length of the long sides is twice the length of the short sides.

How long are the sides of the rectangle?

Solution:

A rectangle has four sides, with sides opposite eachother the same length.

Since we know that two short sides plus two long sides equals a total of 24 centimetres, we know that one long side plus one short side must be half that long - 12 centimetres.

We know that a long side is twice as long as a short side. A bit of guessing and checking tells us that the two numbers that work are 8 centimetres for the long sides and 4 centimetres for the short sides.