Concept explainers
To explain: a four legged table may rock even if the floor is level.
Explanation of Solution
Given information:
A four legged table.
Only three points are needed to define a plane.
Therefore, at any position where the table is stable, only 3 legs need to be touching the ground (i.e. on the same plane).
The other leg may be out of position or not in the same plane, and thus the table may rock.
If we took that last leg out, then no matter what, even if the legs were wildly misshapen, the three legs would produce a "stable" table.
However, the addition leg implies that any combination of 3 legs can produce a "stable" support. So we can wobble between different combinations of three legs.
Therefore, a four legged table that rocks on an even surface has one leg that is not in the same plane as the other three.
Chapter 1 Solutions
McDougal Littell Jurgensen Geometry: Student Edition Geometry
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