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Adventitious angles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2016

Colin Tripp*
Affiliation:
Mathematics Department, Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex

Extract

Many readers will be familiar with the puzzle illustrated in Fig. 1, in which the triangle ABC is isosceles and angles a, b, c are given. If a, b, c are integers when expressed in degrees then it might appear, at first sight, that so must angle θ be. But this is not the case. The reader will quickly find that θ is not accessible by simple ‘angle chasing’. By this I mean marking in the

angles obtained by making the angles in any triangle sum to 180° and by making the exterior angle of any triangle equal the sum of the interior opposites. The following question arises: Given a, b, c can angle θ be obtained by pure geometry? My conjecture is that the answer is yes in those cases when angles a, b, c and θ are all multiples of the same angle. However, I am far from proving this, and have obtained geometrical derivations only for a limited number of cases, as will be seen.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1975

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References

page 98 note For a recent instance, see the Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications for July/August 1974.

page 99 note Strictly (20°, 60°, 50°), but the ‘degrees’ sign is conveniently omitted.