Two young mathematicians discuss the idea of area.
- Devyn
- Riley, I’ve have a troubling question.
- Riley
- Yes?
- Devyn
- What is area?
- Riley
- Oh, for a rectangle it is just
- Devyn
- Right. But shouldn’t it mean more?
Area is a funny thing. What is it really? Well the idea is this:
Define something as having a ‘‘unit’’ area, and see how many times it ‘‘covers’’ something.
The most obivious thing to use for our ‘‘unit’’ area is a unit square. From this we can quickly move on to find the area of any rectangle as