A regular -gon is divided into pieces of triangular shape. Find the least possible number of pieces.
, 2010
Solution
All the interior angles of the -gon can be built from the inner angles of the triangular pieces. As the sum of the inner angles of the -gon is and that of every triangle is , there must be at least triangles. On the other hand, each convex -gon can be divided into exactly triangles by choosing one vertex and cutting the figure into pieces along the diagonals that start from this vertex.
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