A regular -gon is divided into triangles using diagonals, no two of which have a common interior point. What is the maximum number among these triangles that can be pairwise non-congruent?
(Dušan Đukić)
Solution
Solution:
The answer is for , that is, 1 for .
Triangles with two, one, or none of their sides being also a side of the -gon () we call, in order, ears, thin, and thick triangles. Let there be thick triangles, thin ones, and ears in the division. The number of sides of the -gon that they occupy is . On the other hand, the total number of triangles is . From these two relations we obtain .
Since there are at most distinct triangles that are not thick, the total number of non-congruent triangles in the division is no greater than . On the other hand, in such a division there are ears, and all ears are congruent, so . Adding these gives , i.e. .
Finally, by drawing the diagonals and and we obtain an example with exactly non-congruent triangles.