In geometry last week, Mr. Zippin gave the students an opportunity to test the Legend of the Hypnotized Subject. The old legend says that if you place a mirror on the floor 200 cm away from your subject and stare into the reflection of their eyes just the right way, your subject will squawk like a chicken. However, you have to stand exactly in the right place or the trick won’t work.
In order to test this legend, the students had to work together and apply their knowledge of similar triangles.
First, the students decided to draw a diagram of the situation.
They noticed that it looked like they were working with two triangles. Using their understanding of angle-angle similarity, the students determined that the triangles were similar. Therefore, they knew they could make and solve proportions to find the hypnotist’s unknown distance to the mirror. They reasoned that they needed to find out how high their eyes were off the ground. After measuring for this, they quickly solved the equations they made and were ready to test the Legend.
“Squawk!”
FRIDAY BLOG 