PRIZE PUZZLE FOR AUGUST 2004 TABLETOP What is the smallest number of pieces a carpenter must cut this wood in order to make a square table top, using all the wood? Send your answer with a diagram to me, David Broughton, to arrive by 1st September to be entered into the prize draw. Click this symbol for e-mail: [For the purists: the diagram is a right-angled isosceles triangle with its hypotenuse connected to the edge of a square.]

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TABLETOP SOLUTION I received a very nice cardboard cut-out of the solution from John Bownas. John Stafford provided a similar solution by means of a drawing. Rosemary West found a solution which needed five cuts into six pieces that could be re-assembled into a square. But John Bownas wins the prize this month. Well done all of you.