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Polygons

A polygon is a shape with straight sides. The parts are called edges or sides and the corners are called vertices. There are two types of angles: interior angles inside the polygon and exterior angles outside. A regular polygon has equal length sides and equal interior and exterior angles. The formulas to calculate the sum of interior angles, interior angle, and exterior angle of a regular polygon are provided. The names of polygons are derived from Greek/Latin prefixes meaning the number of sides combined with -gon.

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Gyanesh Kumar
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176 views4 pages

Polygons

A polygon is a shape with straight sides. The parts are called edges or sides and the corners are called vertices. There are two types of angles: interior angles inside the polygon and exterior angles outside. A regular polygon has equal length sides and equal interior and exterior angles. The formulas to calculate the sum of interior angles, interior angle, and exterior angle of a regular polygon are provided. The names of polygons are derived from Greek/Latin prefixes meaning the number of sides combined with -gon.

Uploaded by

Gyanesh Kumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Polygons

A polygon is a shape with straight sides. It is a Greek word that


literally means many-angle.

The parts of a polygon


The straight lines of a polygon are called edges or sides. The
corners are called vertices. Vertex is the Latin word for corner.

vertex

edge or side

Polygons contain two main types of angles, interior angles and


exterior angles.

Shown below is a regular pentagon. Its interior angles are


displayed in red and its exterior angles are in green.

The definition of an exterior angle is the angle you have to turn


through in to change your direction from one side to that of the
next side.
Regular polygons
Regular polygons are polygons whose sides are all the same
length, whose interior angles are all equal, and whose exterior
angles are all equal.

Sum of Sum of
Interior Exterior
Sides Name Diagram interior exterior
angle angle
angles angles

equilateral
3 triangle 60° 180° 120° 360°

4 square 90° 360° 90° 360°

regular
5 pentagon 108° 540° 72° 360°

regular
6 hexagon 120° 720° 60° 360°

regular
7 heptagon 128.6° 900° 51.4° 360°

regular
8 octagon 135° 1080° 45° 360°

The sum of interior angles in a polygon with n sides can be


calculated using the following formula:

sum of interior angles = 180° n ! 2 ( )


A simple way to prove this rule is true is to divide any polygon
up into triangles. Start at a vertex. Draw lines from the starting
vertex to all the other vertices. In effect, the polygon has been
divided up into triangles. The sum of internal angles in a
triangle is always 180°, so the sum of internal angles in a
polygon is simply 180° multiplied by the number of triangles it
can be divided into.

In a regular polygon, all interior angles are equal. The formula


for the interior angle of a regular polygon with n sides is:

" 2%
interior angle = 180° $ 1 !
# n '&
The sum of exterior angles in any polygon is always 360°.

This can be rationalised as follows. Suppose you are walking along the perimeter of
a polygon. When you get to the end of the first side, the angle you have to turn
through before you can walk along the next side is an exterior angle. You walk along
the second side and at the end, you again have to turn through the exterior angle.
You keep doing this until you get back to where you started, by which time you have
rotated back to your original direction, having turned through a full circle of 360°.

In a regular polygon, all exterior angles are equal. The formula


for the exterior angle of a regular polygon with n sides is:
360°
exterior angle =
n
The names of polygons
Most polygons have a name ending in –gon. Most begin with a
prefix based on the Greek or Latin word for how many sides
they have.

Sides Prefix Name


3 tri– triangle
4 quad– quadrilateral
5 penta– pentagon
6 hexa– hexagon
7 hepta– heptagon
8 octa– octagon
9 nona– nonagon
10 deca– decagon
11 hendeca– hendecagon
12 dodeca– dodecagon

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