Regular Polygon
A regular polygon is an -sided
polygon in which the sides are all the same length and
are symmetrically placed about a common center (i.e., the polygon is both equiangular
and equilateral). Only certain regular polygons
are "constructible" using the
classical Greek tools of the compass and straightedge.
The terms equilateral triangle and square refer to the regular 3- and 4-polygons, respectively. The words for polygons
with
sides (e.g., pentagon, hexagon,
heptagon, etc.) can refer to either regular or non-regular
polygons, although the terms generally refer to regular
polygons in the absence of specific wording.
A regular -gon
is implemented in the Wolfram Language
as RegularPolygon[n],
or more generally as RegularPolygon[r,
n], RegularPolygon[
x, y
, rspec, n], etc.
The sum of perpendiculars from any point to the sides of a regular polygon of sides is
times the apothem.
Let
be the side length,
be the inradius, and
the circumradius of a regular
polygon. Then
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(1)
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(2)
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(3)
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(4)
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(5)
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(6)
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(7)
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(8)
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(9)
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The area moments of inertia about axes along an inradius and a circumradius
of a regular -gon
are given by
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(10)
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(11)
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(12)
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(13)
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(Roark 1954, p. 70).
If the number of sides is doubled, then
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(14)
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(15)
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The area of the first few regular -gon with unit edge lengths are
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(16)
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(17)
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(18)
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(19)
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(20)
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(21)
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(22)
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(23)
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The algebraic degrees of these for , 4, ... are 2, 1, 4, 2, 6, 2, 6, 4, 10, 2, 12, 6, 8, 4,
16, 6, 18, 4, ... (OEIS A089929).
The plot above shows how the areas of the regular -gons with unit inradius (blue) and unit circumradius (red)
approach that of a unit disk (i.e.,
).
If
and
are the perimeters of the regular polygons inscribed
in and circumscribed around a given circle and
and
their areas, then
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(24)
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(25)
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and
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(26)
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(27)
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(Beyer 1987, p. 125).
The sum of interior angles in any -gon is given by
radians, or
(Zwillinger 1995, p. 270).
The following table gives parameters for the first few regular polygons of unit edge length ,
where
is the interior (vertex) angle,
is the exterior angle,
is the inradius,
is the circumradius,
and
is the area (Williams 1979, p. 33).
| polygon | ||||||
| equilateral triangle | ||||||
| square | 1 | |||||
| pentagon | ||||||
| hexagon | 1 | |||||
| heptagon | ||||||
| octagon | ||||||
| nonagon | ||||||
| decagon | ||||||
| hendecagon | ||||||
| dodecagon | ||||||
| tridecagon | ||||||
| tetradecagon |
Only some of the regular polygons can be built by geometric construction using a compass and straightedge. The numbers of sides for which regular polygons are constructible are those having central angles corresponding to so-called trigonometry angles.
It is possible to construct relatively simple two-dimensional functions that have the symmetry of a regular
-gon (i.e., whose level curves
are regular
-gons).
Examples, illustrated above, include
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(28)
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(29)
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(30)
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(31)
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See also
257-gon, 65537-gon, Apeirogon, Bill Picture, Chaos Game, Constructible Polygon, de Moivre Number, Equilateral Triangle, Heptadecagon, Hexagon, Hexagram, Octagon, Pentagon, Pentagram, Polygon, Polygon Circumscribing, Polygon Inscribing, Regular Polygon Division by Diagonals, Square, Star Polygon, Trigonometry Angles Explore this topic in the MathWorld classroomExplore with Wolfram|Alpha
References
Beyer, W. H. CRC Standard Mathematical Tables, 28th ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1987.Bishop, W. "How to Construct a Regular Polygon." Amer. Math. Monthly 85, 186-188, 1978.Conway, J. H. and Guy, R. K. The Book of Numbers. New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 140 and 197-202, 1996.Courant, R. and Robbins, H. "Regular Polygons." §3.2 in What Is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods, 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, pp. 122-125, 1996.Coxeter, H. S. M. Introduction to Geometry, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1969.DeTemple, D. W. "Carlyle Circles and the Lemoine Simplicity of Polygonal Constructions." Amer. Math. Monthly 98, 97-108, 1991.Dickson, L. E. "Constructions with Ruler and Compasses; Regular Polygons." Ch. 8 in Monographs on Topics of Modern Mathematics Relevant to the Elementary Field (Ed. J. W. A. Young). New York: Dover, pp. 352-386, 1955.Gardner, M. Mathematical Carnival: A New Round-Up of Tantalizers and Puzzles from Scientific American. New York: Vintage Books, p. 207, 1977.Gauss, C. F. §365 and 366 in Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. Leipzig, Germany, 1801. Translated by A. A. Clarke. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965.Harris, J. W. and Stocker, H. "RegularReferenced on Wolfram|Alpha
Regular PolygonCite this as:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Regular Polygon." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/RegularPolygon.html