You are given some equilateral triangles and squares, all with side length , and asked to form convex sided polygons using these pieces. If both types must be used, what are the possible values of , assuming that there is sufficient supply of the pieces?
Solution
Thus . It's easy to construct such polygons with - sides.

To complete the proof, we now show that cannot be or . An interior square is a square with none of its vertices lie on the boundary (of the convex polygon). At a vertex of an interior square, there are either squares and triangles or squares. Thus there are at least squares at every vertex of an interior square. A boundary square is a square that has at least one vertex on the boundary. It is also easy to see that a boundary square must have one side on the boundary. We first show that the convex polygon must have a boundary square. Suppose on the contrary, all the squares are interior. Consider a line containing one side of the polygon. Let be a vertex belonging to a square so that is closest to . At there are two squares. Since between and the line containing and parallel to , there are no vertices belonging to a square, one side of each of the two squares containing must lie on , i.e., the squares share a common side. Let be the last vertex on the 'left' side of on the line belonging to a square. By applying the same argument, there must be another vertex to the left of that belongs to a square, contradicting the choice of . Therefore, there are boundary squares. If the boundary of the polygon formed is formed only by the edges of squares, we get a rectangle. This means the boundary is a cycle of squares. Removing these squares either leaves nothing or another rectangle. This means that no triangle is used, a contradiction. Thus on the boundary, there are edges belonging to triangles and squares. When an edge belonging to a triangle meets an edge belonging to a square, they meet at a vertex of the polygon and the angle at the vertex is . There are at least two such vertices and therefore there are two angles which are . This means cannot be or .
1. The possible internal angles are , , , . Let their respective numbers be . Then we have
Eliminating , we obtain