Welcome to the confusing triangle situation. What the hell?
The same four shapes, when rearranged, seem to take up less space and leave a blank square. How is that possible?
[expand title=”SOLUTION“]A friend sent this to me in college and it ruined my life for a little before it finally clicked. Here’s what’s happening:
So it seems like all that’s happening is a rearrangement of the pieces of a single big triangle:1
But something tricky is going on with the big hypotenuse in both triangles.
It’s all about slope. The blue triangle, red triangle, and what appears to be the large triangle all have different slopes.
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More puzzles on Wait But Why:
The Puzzle of the Pirate Booty
The Infinite Checkerboard Quandary
And one very big puzzle: