The Carpenter and the Nails
A 26" x 26" square metal plate needs to be fixed by a carpenter on to a wooden board. The carpenter uses nails all along the edges of the square such that there are 27 nails on each side of the square. Each nail is at the same distance from the neighboring nails. How many nails does the carpenter use?
The answer is 104.
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1 solution
Each side carpenter used 27 nails and the corner 4 nails are counted twice.
Hence, Nails Used by the carpenter= (4 x 27) - (4 x 1) = 4 (27-1) = 4(26)=104