look at the picture and read the words in the picture.as if the problem looks not a real problem,but how do explain the 'new' hole.because the area of the right-angled triangle donot change,you must analyse the triangle carefully by your thought.er,let's to say what our opinion for this...

You had me confused at first until I realized that the two triangular pieces do not have the same slop. Thus the two bigger shapes made up of the smaller pieces are not the same shape and they are not perfect triangles. It still looks very deceiving though. I must stare at it some more later.

ya i think the slope is a bit different ... but that little difference slope wouldnt make up that big hole .. hmm ... u made me confuse : lol

The slope of the smaller triangle is bigger. The slope of the small triangle is 2/5 while the slope of the bigger triangle is 3/8. Over a distance of 5 the bigger triangle would go up 3/8*5<2. Now the area contributed by this extra height over the remaining distance is (2-3/8*5)*8=16-15=1 which is exactly the size of the hole.

No affence dude upstairs.... ^ but that sounds pretty hard and making the problem you are trying to solving hard is getting your head twisted.. unless you know how to do it of course and by the sounds of it you do..

I'm really crap at math so I'm just going to say that theres a gap because someone ate it.

umm,well done.i think you are good at analysing mathe.what you said is rather good.but you should loot at the picture more carefully,noticing the clearance of table,is every blank same,same size,try again...

LoL .. please tell us the answer !! We are tired of guessing it wrongly

The diagram has to be deceiving in some way so that the two triangles appear to have the same slope without having the same slope.