The figure shows a right triangle with the right angle at .
and are 2 points on such that .
Find the measure of the angle in degrees.
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Triangle A B C and three others identical to it are pictured in red are organized to form a square as shown.
The original image made the triangle appear to be isosceles, but the problem did not state that it was and it does not need to be. So I make it a general right triangle.
The condition that A M 2 + N C 2 = M N 2 translates, thanks to the Pythagorean theorem, into M N = N M ’ where M ′ is a point equivalent to M in the next triangle.
This means that the black octagon has sides of equal lengths.
It is inscribed into a square, so it could be tempting to assume that it is a regular octagon and that the angle
∠ M O N = 8 3 6 0 ∘ = 4 5 ∘
...
However, the octagon need not be regular, as shown in the lower image.
The triangles O N M and O N M ’ are no longer isosceles, but they are still congruent.
All of their sides are the same size, since the side O N is shared, M N = N M ’ and O M = O M ’ .
Therefore the angles ∠ M O N and ∠ N O M ’ are equal to each other.
They are also equal to the remaining 6 such angles.
So we can conclude that even in the general case
∠ M O N = 8 3 6 0 ∘ = 4 5 ∘