Zebra Tacos

The Crocodile Maths Problem¶

BBC News | Crocodile Maths Question

In [1]:

from sympy import *
init_printing(use_latex='mathjax')
x=symbols("x")

In [2]:

T=5*(36+x**2)**(0.5)+4*(20-x)
T

Out[2]:

$$- 4 x + 5 \left(x^{2} + 36\right)^{0.5} + 80$$

In [3]:

%matplotlib inline
plot(T,(x,0,20))

Out[3]:

<sympy.plotting.plot.Plot at 0x3c835c0>

In [4]:

Tprime=diff(T,x)
Tprime

Out[4]:

$$\frac{5.0 x}{\left(x^{2} + 36\right)^{0.5}} - 4$$

In [5]:

solve(Tprime,x)

Out[5]:

$$\left [ 8.0\right ]$$

In [6]:

T.subs(x,8.0)

Out[6]:

$$98.0$$

Resources¶

• Three Acts Math Problem | The Taco Cart

• Fawn Nguyen | Mr. Meyers Taco Cart

• Youtube | 2015 new Higher Mathematics paper 2 no. 8

• PDF | NH Mathematics 2015 Questions