Edwin's solution with drawings:
A circular pool is 46 feet in diameter and has a flag stone walk around it that is 4 feet wide. Find the area of the walk. Express the answer in terms of .
Here is the pool only, which is 46 feet across.
So it has a radius of half that, or 23 feet:
The area of the pool is given by the formula
It has a walk around it which is 4 feet wide.
If we take out the inner circle, like this:
we see that the outer circle, which includes both the
pool and the walk, has a radius of
or feet.
The area of the outer circle which includes
the pool and the walk is given by the formula:
Going back to the original picture:
AREA OF WALK = AREA OF OUTER CIRCLE - AREA OF INNER CIRCLE =
square feet.
Edwin