Magic Carpet

by
Erik Oosterwal



I had a party over at my house the other weekend and, as is typical at parties, some things in the house got a bit messed up.  Most of the things that got dirty were easily cleaned, but my wife's great-aunt left us a large 12'x12' Persian carpet that she claimed was very valuable which someone spilled something on.


We asked a number of cleaning experts how to clean the stain, but they all said they didn't want to risk trying out their chemical cleaners on a rug that was so old and so expensive.  We were distraught to think that our expensive carpet was completely ruined, but I stumbled upon a brilliant idea:  We could cut the carpet in such a way that we could eliminate the stain.  My wife didn't believe me so I went to the sewing kit, got out the tailor's chalk, and traced some lines on the carpet like this:


After tracing the lines, I had one of the carpet experts cut along the lines, rearrange the pieces, and re-sew the carpet so that it ended up like this:


Now the question is, what happened to the square with the stain?  How could I take a 1 foot piece out of the carpet, rearrange the remaining pieces and still have a 12'x12' carpet?

I give up, show me the Answer


Copyright E. Oosterwal - 2004
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