Lesson 6

Discover

Try This 1

1. Assume you order a small pizza for lunch. The pizza is cut into four slices. You eat one slice of pizza in the first minute. After that, you don’t feel as hungry. In the next minute, you eat only one-quarter of a slice. In the third minute, you eat one-quarter of a quarter-slice. If this pattern continues, when will you finish the pizza? Is it possible that you will not finish the pizza even if you had all the time in the world?
   
   
    

   

   © Joe Gough/4922965/Fotolia

   
   
   In mathematics, if you add an infinite number of terms together, will the sum always be equal to infinity? Use Discovering Infinite Trapezoids to simulate the addition of an infinite number of terms.
   
   
    
   
   © 2011 Alberta Education
   
   
   
2. If you were to continue dividing and shading the trapezoid according to the procedure in Discovering Infinite Trapezoids, what fraction of the original trapezoid will be shaded after an infinite number of steps? You may want to go back to the applet to try shading different parts of the trapezoid in order to better estimate the fraction of the original trapezoid that is shaded.

Save your response in your course folder.

Capture the final image of your partially shaded trapezoid and save that image in your course folder.

Not sure how to capture the image? You might use the PrtSc key on your keyboard, which is to the right of the F12 key. When the image you want to capture is on your computer monitor, press the PrtSc key. Open a blank document, such as a Word document, and paste the image into the document.

Remember to save the document containing your image. You will revisit this information later in the lesson.