Task of the Week: Tafelberg’s Monument

As a few weeks ago, the Task of the Week leads us to the African continent, more precisely to the approximately 1000-meter-high Tafelberg in Cape Town. There you can find a monument of stone, which is also an ideal object for a MCM task.

Task: Tafelberg’s Monument (task number: 1791)

Calculate the mass of the stone monument. Give the result in kg. 1 cm³ of granite weighs 2,6 g.

First, the shape of the stone has to be considered more closely. When choosing a suitable model, a prism with a trapezoidal base can be used. For this, it is necessary to ignore minor deviations from the ideal body as well as to operate with the stone mentally. The required data are then determined and the required weight of the stone is obtained by means of the area content formula of a trapezoid, the volume formula of a prism and the given density.

The task shows that over the last few years, MCM has developed into an international platform for authentic “outdoor” mathematic tasks and has already been set up in many prominent places. We are looking forward to further tasks and are looking forward to the countries and regions in which new MCM tasks will emerge.