A wire of length 12" can be bent into a circle, a square or cut into 2 pieces and make both a circle and a square. How much wire should be used for the circle if the total area enclosed by the figure(s) is to be:
a) a Maximum
b) a Minimum
What I've got so far is that the formula for the square is $A_s=\frac{1}{16}s^2$ and the circumfrance of the circle to be $P=12-c$ and area to be $A_c = \pi(\frac{P}{2\pi})^2$ where $c$ is the length of the wire for the circle and $s$ is the length of the wire for the square.
Now I know I need to differentiate these formulas to then find the max and min they both can be, but what am I differentiating with respect to? The missing variable in each of the formulas?
Also, once, I find the derivitives, what would my next steps be to minimizing and maximizing these?
And did I set the problem up correctly?
Thanks for any help