A tile installer makes squares from rectangular tiles. Each rectangular tile is \(20\,\text{cm}\) long and \(10\,\text{cm}\) wide. The installer places two tiles together along their long sides to make one square.
a) What is the side length of the square?
b) The installer wants to cover a square area with side length \(60\,\text{cm}\) using the squares from part a). How many of the squares are needed?
c) How many original rectangular tiles are needed altogether?
Hints
- Think about how two rectangles can make a square.
- Find how many small-square side lengths fit along one side of the large square.
- Remember that the squares form both rows and columns.
- Each small square is made from two rectangular tiles.
Solution
1. Placing two \(20\,\text{cm} \times 10\,\text{cm}\) rectangles together along their \(20\,\text{cm}\) sides makes a \(20\,\text{cm} \times 20\,\text{cm}\) square.
2. Along each side of the larger square, \(60 \div 20 = 3\) small squares fit. Therefore, \(3 \times 3 = 9\) small squares are needed.
3. Each small square uses \(2\) rectangular tiles, so \(9 \times 2 = 18\) rectangular tiles are needed.
Answer
a) \(20\,\text{cm}\)
b) \(9\) squares
c) \(18\) rectangular tiles