A New Development of the Classical Single Ladder Problem via Converting the Ladder to a Staircase

Abstract

Our purpose is to shed some new light on problems arising from a study of the classical Single Ladder Problem (SLP). The basic idea is to convert the SLP to a corresponding Single Staircase Problem. The main result (Theorem 1) shows that this idea works fine and new results can be obtained by just calculating rational solutions of an algebraic equation. Some examples of such concrete calculations are given and examples of new results are also given. In particular, we derive a number of integer SLPs with congruent ladders, where a set of rectangular boxes with integer sides constitutes a staircase along a common ladder. Finally, the case with a regular staircase along a given ladder is investigated and illustrated with concrete examples.