ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the lived-work and reasoning involved in trying to solve the square tangram. It examines what someone does to try to find the solution to this puzzle. Thousands of years ago in ancient China, a worker named Tan dropped a square tile on the floor. The tile broke into seven pieces. Tan tried to put the tile back together. First he formed the shape of a person, then a house, a boat, and a cat, but he couldn't make the square. Thus, according to legend, tangram puzzles were born. Some books on tangrams contain hundreds, even thousands of different shapes. One problem is to try to figure out how the tangram pieces can be fitted together to make those shapes. Another problem is to discover new shapes that can be formed.
