There are multiple ways of joining the vertices of a regular -gon to form a regular -gram . For example, below are the six kinds of dodecagrams (12 vertices).
How many different kinds of 2018-grams can be formed by joining the vertices of a regular 2018-gon?
Note : To construct a regular -gram, first start with the vertices of a regular -gon. Then, draw a segment joining two of the vertices. Finally, draw all the other segments of equal length joining pairs of vertices.
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Given a regular n -gon, label the vertices consecutively v 0 , v 1 , . . . , v n − 1 . Form a regular n -gram by choosing an integer 1 < k < n − 1 , and then drawing line segments between every k -th vertex v 0 , v k , v 2 k , . . . , cycling around if necessary. For instance, in the example provided in the problem statement, k = 1 for the dodecahedron, k = 2 for the 2-hexagon compound, k = 3 for the 3-square compound, and so on. If k divides n , we will form a compound of k closed k n -gons. Notice that the values k and n − k result in the same n -gram, because in both cases each segment jumps the same number of consecutive vertices, one just does so clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. So there are only 2 n distinct n-grams for n even and 2 n − 1 n -grams for n odd. In particular, for n = 2 0 1 8 we have 1009 n -grams.