Due to inclement weather, an aircraft flies an instrument approach into Oakland Airport. Given low visibility and ceiling, the captain elects to make an ILS approach to the field. An ILS, or Instrument Landing System, provides glide path and glide slope information. The ILS presents the pilot with a 3-degree glide slope which must be adhered to.

The captain flies to the outer marker, located five nautical miles from the landing point. The captain crosses the outer marker, inbound at 1,500 feet above ground level (AGL). Measured from mean sea level (MSL) at Oakland, 1,500 feet AGL at this airport is 1510 MSL. The point of intended landing at Oakland is 10 feet MSL or 0 feet AGL.

On final approach, the Captain maintains a steady true air speed (TAS) of 135 knots. A headwind of exactly 5 knots is directly on the nose of the aircraft. The vertical speed indicator (VSI) measures aircraft vertical speed in feet per minute.

Compute the reading, in feet per minute, that the Captain is witnessing on her VSI.

Send the correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was John Lovato with Time T= 135 minutes.

WARNING: Use of AI to solve this problem automatically puts you on a NO FLY list.

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for February 20, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

To automate his sand castle project, Tristan rented an AI-guided sand conveyor. At redline speed, it sifted, sorted, and piled Crab Cove sand into a perfect cone. After the conveyor operated for just five minutes, the cone of sand stood 3 feet tall.

If the shape remains constant, find the total time T until the cone reaches 9 feet high.

Send the correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was James Forakis with diameter D = 130 meters.

(Extra credit: Given: y^z = x and 8z = xy and y = ½ z, find the value of z.)

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for February 13, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

An isosceles trapezoid is inscribed within a circle.
The trapezoid has a height h of 49 meters and an area A of 5831 square meters.
Each base angle θ has a measure of 81.869897652°.

Find the diameter D of the circle.

Send the correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Congrats to last week’s winner Denise Hum with Area = 2026 square meters.

(Use of AI is strictly forbidden.)

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for February 6, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

The regular dodecagon depicted above obviously has both an area and a perimeter. The ratio of its area to its perimeter is precisely 12.5508423822 meters.

Find the area of the dodecagon.

Send your correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was Ben Chacon with n = 16 sheep.

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for January 30, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

After winning giga-bucks on Scratchers, a mathematician buys land and turns agronomist. Layla’s land is on the Argentine Pampas where the growing season is essentially unabated. Given her affection for the bovine and the ovine, Layla raises cows and sheep.

Experimenting, she put 65 cows and 25 sheep in a one-section (260 hectares) pasture. In 24 days, the cows and sheep had exhausted the pasture.

Next, she put 27 cows and 15 sheep in an identical one-section (640 acres) pasture. In 60 days, the cows and sheep grazed this pasture to exhaustion.

Then, she put 16 cows and 20 sheep in an identical one-section (2.6 km 2) pasture. In 96 days, it was no surprise that the cows and sheep exhausted the grass in this pasture.

Then a precipitous decline in beef prices resulted in Layla going with sheep only.

Find the maximum sheep n that Layla could put in a one-section pasture without exhausting it.

Send your correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was Doug Bailey from Georgia with amplitude = 2.43681793 units.

(Author’s note: No greenhouse gases were emitted by animals intrinsic to this puzzle.)

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for January 23, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

Tristan has an inelastic red rope measuring exactly 12 units in length. On a smooth flat surface, he carefully forms the rope into a perfect sine curve.

Find the amplitude a of the sine wave he formed.

Send your correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was Ben Chacon with 32130 square units.

(Author’s Note: We ask that readers do not use AI to solve this puzzle.)

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for January 16, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

Arabic Numerals were introduced to Europe by Leonardo Bonacci. Bonacci, better known as Fibonacci, hailed from the 13th Century Republic of Pisa. If not for Fibonacci, we would all be using grandfather and cuckoo clocks.

Yet some people believe intelligent life became fully evolved when they were born. Fibonacci provided us with the Fibonacci Series; which ran just one season on Netflix. It is a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers.

Imagine the mysterious Fibonacci Series:  f₁, f₂, f₃, f₄, where  f₁ = 7 and  f₄= 27.

Find the product of f₁ and f₄ and call that product A. Find twice the product of f₂ and f₃ and call that product B. Find the sum of the squares of f₂ and f₃ and call that sum of the squares C.

A, B and C form a Pythagorean Triple rarely performed off the Diving Platform.

Verify the applicability of the Pythagorean Theorem: A²+ B²= C²

Find the area of the right triangle (not drawn to scale) depicted above.

Send your correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was Steve Morse with surface area = 2026 square centimeters.

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for January 9, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

Tristan is experimenting with alternative geometric forms of Frosty the Snowman. Tristan’s artisan hands initially form Frosty with a perfectly spherical body at left.

As a sphere, Frosty’s surface area is calculated at 1632.947849 square centimeters. Next, the same protean Frosty is reformed and retooled with a cubic body.

Ignoring the hats, eyes, etc., find Frosty’s new surface area as a cube.

Send your answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com and you might win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was Shelley Dorner with weight = 2,026 kilograms.

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for January 2, 2026 appeared first on Alameda Post.

Two hibernal Prometheans, Tristan and Layla, fashion a golem viz Frosty the Snowman.

Frosty is composed of three perfect spheres of homogeneous snow. A bamboo pole is placed tangent to all three perfect spheres of snow.

The top sphere has a radius of 8 units and a weight of precisely 128.5074331 troy ounces. The bottom sphere has a weight of exactly 1463.77998 troy ounces.

Assume each sphere is balanced tangent to its adjacent sphere at a single point. The weights of Frosty’s stick arms, carrot nose, old felt hat and coal parts are all negligible.

Find the weight of Frosty the Snowman.

Send the correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

The correct answer to last week’s puzzle was V = 886.75352 cubic centimeters.

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for December 26, 2025 appeared first on Alameda Post.

A Golden Rectangle has an area of 1,000 square centimeters. A right cone is to be formed from a single piece cut from the Golden Rectangle.

Find the maximum possible volume for a cone formed as described above.

Send the correct answer to JeffreyRSmith@aol.com for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.

Last week’s winner was Anne Aldridge with H = 12 centimeters.

Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at JeffreyRSmith@aol.com.

The post Math Puzzle for December 19, 2025 appeared first on Alameda Post.