Problem:
Determine, with proof, whether a square can be dissected into finitely many (not necessarily congruent) triangles, each of which has interior angles , , and .
, 2025
Solution
Solution:
Assume for sake of contradiction that such a dissection exists. It has exactly half as many angles as angles.
Around any intersection point except the square's vertices, the only angles that can appear are , , and . The only combinations of these that sum to or are
In particular, around any such point, there are at least half as many angles as angles.
However, the square's vertices must each be surrounded by three angles and zero angles, as there is no other way to get a sum of . Thus the total number of angles in the dissection must be at least 12 more than half the number of angles, contradiction.
Thus no such dissection exists.
Solution 2:
Again assume for sake of contradiction that a dissection exists. Interpret the dissection as a graph , where the vertices of the graph are the vertices of all the triangles, and edges connect each pair of consecutive vertices along a line segment.
Call a vertex flat if it is on either the boundary of the square (including its corners) or the interior of an edge of any triangle. Let be the number of flat vertices and be the number of non-flat vertices in . Let and be the number of edges and faces (triangles) in the dissection, respectively. Then .
Observing the angle combinations in the first solution, we see that any non-flat vertex must have at least 6 incident edges, and any flat vertex must have at least 4. Thus , so .
The sum of the angles of all triangles is . Around any non-flat vertex, such angles sum to . Around any flat vertex, the angles sum to , with the exception of the four corners of the square, where they sum to instead. Thus
so . This means
contradiction. Thus no dissection exists.