In a regular pentagon , an equilateral triangle is contained. Determine the size of the angle .
(L. Hozová)
Hint. What are the sizes of the interior angles of a regular pentagon?
In a regular pentagon , an equilateral triangle is contained. Determine the size of the angle .
(L. Hozová)
Hint. What are the sizes of the interior angles of a regular pentagon?
The size of the internal angles of an equilateral triangle is , the size of the internal angles of a regular pentagon is . At vertex , we find that the size of angle is .
Segments , and are congruent, so triangle is isosceles with base . The internal angles at the base are congruent and their sum is a right angle. The size of angle is therefore .
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Note. A general -sided polygon can be divided into triangles (whose vertices are the vertices of the -sided polygon), so the sum of the sizes of its internal angles is . A regular -sided polygon has all internal angles congruent, so the size of each is . This explains the initial relationships for and .
A regular -sided polygon can also be divided into congruent isosceles triangles with a common vertex at the center of the -sided polygon. For , we get that angle has a size of , so angles , etc., have a size of .
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