Math 4580, Winter/Spring 2000, Georgia Institute of Technology

HOMEWORK 1: A wire of length L is cut into two pieces: one to be used to form the perimater
of a square, and the other a circle. How should the wire be cut in order that the sum of the areas
be as small [and also as large] as possible? Set this up as an optimization problem. What is the
objective function and what are the constraints? Do the problem in two different ways: as a one
variable problem, and also as a two variable problem using the Lagrange multiplier principle.

FIRST METHOD: Let the piece that goes into the square have length x and let
the piece that goes into the circle have length y. Then x+y=L. The quantity
to maximize or minimize is
y2
A = (x/4)2 +
4p
x2 (L-x)2
subject to 0 £ x, 0 £ y. Substituting y=L-x and differentiating A = + ,
16 4p
dA 4
we see that = 0 when x = L » .5601 L and the corresponding value of A
dx p+4
x2 (L-x)2
is computed to be » .03501 L2. Since A = + is a quadratic in x
16 4p
and the coefficient of x2 is positive, this value for x must be the minimizer.
The maximizer must be one of the endpoints, x=0 or x=L. The value of A
is L /4p » .07958L2 at x=0 and L2/16 = .0625L2 at x=L. The maximum occurs
2

therefore when x=0, when there is no square and all the wire is put into the
circumference of the circle.
SECOND METHOD: We wish to minimize A(x,y) over the line segment defined by
the constraints x+y=L, 0 £ x, 0 £ y. The min or max can only occur at an
endpoint of this line segment, or at an interior point of the line segment
where the gradient ÑA(x,y) = (x/8, y/2p) is perpendicular to the line segment
(that is to say, a multiple of (1,1) which is the gradient of the constraint
function x+y-L). Solving the system:
(x/8, y/2p) = l(1,1)
4
yields y = px/4. Thus x + px/4 = L, or x = L. Now we proceed as before.
4+p
REMARK: There is a famous theorem known as the Isoperimetric Inequality that
states that of all plane figures with a fixed perimeter, the one with the
largest area is a circle. Thus we should have expected the maximum to occur
when all the wire went into the circle.

copyright Jonathan Spingarn, January 2000