I am building a flower bed around a tree. I need to mathematically figure out how far from the tree...

[patricia92243]

my bricks/stones should be - and I don't know how to do it.

The bricks are one foot wide and there are 20 of them. The tree is three feet around (circumference.) I think there should be some way to plan it out from this information but I'm not sure how to go about it.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated!

Patricia

[Kolesar]

1. R = (1 ft/brick * 20 bricks) / ( 2 * pi )

Pi is 3.14

R = (1 ft/brick * 20 bricks) / ( 2 * pi ) => 3.2 feet is the radius of the circle of bricks

Subtract half the width of the tree from R to obtain the distance of the circle of bricks from the outer surface (circumference) of the tree.

The width of the tree is 3 / pi ~= 1 foot. Half the width is 0.5 feet.

3.2 - .5 foot => 2.7 feet from the edge of the tree to the circle of bricks

[patricia92243]

2. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I could never have figured that out if I lived to be 100. n/t

[Inchworm]

3. Medic!

My head just exploded! :P

Beer here, STAT!

:rofl:

:toast:

[BOSSHOG]

4. Mine too

At our house I just put it whereever my wife tells me to.

- Beer!!! That sounds like a great idea and it is after five somewhere.

[Dover]

5. PI in the sky

Wow, I'm impressed with all that figurin' by TheBorealAvenger!

Since I don't have that skill and tend to need a more tangible means of figurin', I guess what I would have done is take a flexible tape measure and counted out 20' or used a 20ft. length of hose or just cut a string 20ft. long (one foot for each brick). Then I would have played with laying it in a circle around the tree until it seemed equidistant all the way around the trunk, and roughly laid the bricks out along that line to make sure they all fit.