Sophia Wiest

Mr. Harris
Pre-Calculus
11/8/17
Problem Set 2
Problem Statement:
John and Mark were playing checkers against one another, but then grew tired of boring regular
odd checkers. They considered themselves professional checker players, and were looking for a
new challenge. The boys then looked at the checkerboard to try and figure out how many squares
were on the board. They could not come up with a conclusion, Mark says there are 81 squares on
the board while John sees only 64 squares. Find how many squares, develop a strategy,
determine a formula, and concur which person is correct and why?
Process:
For my process I started off by counting all of the individual squares and came up with a total
number of 91 squares. I then cut out a 2 x 2 square from graph paper and then found how many 2
x 2 squares fit into the 9 x 9 square, which the result came to be 64 squares. I then did the same
process with a 3 x 3, 4 x 4, 5 x 5, 6 x 6, 7 x 7, 8 x 8, and 9 x 9 square. In the end I discovered that
as the squares that I cut out got bigger, the number of squares that fit in the 9 x 9 square became
smaller and smaller.
X Y
Size of Square Cut Out Math Total Number of Squares
1x1 9x9= 81
2x2 8x8= 64
3x3 7x7= 49
4x4 6x6= 36
5x5 5x5= 25
6x6 4x4= 16
7x7 3x3= 9
8x8 2x2= 4
9x9 1x1= 1

Solution:
My final answer is that it depends on which size square you use, because if you use a 1 x 1
square you will get 81 as your answer, but if you use a 5 x 5 square you will end up only have 25
squares.
2
Y= ∑91 𝑋