Same side nooks

Geometry Level 2

A concave polygon can be equilateral. For example, the concave octagon to the right is equilateral.

What is the least number of sides a concave equilateral polygon can have?

4 5 6 7 8

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1 solution

Andy Hayes
Oct 17, 2017

Suppose that it were possible to have a concave equilateral quadrilateral.

Consider the triangles A B C \triangle ABC and A D C . \triangle ADC. If A B C D ABCD is equilateral, then A B = B C = A D = D C . AB=BC=AD=DC. In addition, the triangles share the side A C . AC. The triangles are congruent by SSS congruence, but this implies they are coincident. This is a contradiction. Thus, a concave equilateral quadrilateral is impossible.

A concave equilateral pentagon is possible, although they typically look kind of weird.

This particular concave equilateral pentagon was formed by taking a rhombus whose smallest angle is less than 60 , ^\circ, and then placing an equilateral triangle on top of it. However, there are other ways of forming a concave equilateral pentagon.

Moderator note:

As pointed out in the comments, another way to form an equilateral concave pentagon is to start with a regular pentagon and flip one of the points inward:

I didn't expect the equilateral shape to look so strange...

Zain Majumder - 3 years, 7 months ago

My preference for the pentagon was just a regular pentagon with one point flipped inward. :)

Jerry Barrington - 3 years, 7 months ago

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I like that one. It looks like a stylized pac-man that way.

Brian Egedy - 3 years, 7 months ago

Also there is a square with an equilateral triangle cut out from one side

Matt McNabb - 3 years, 7 months ago

what about a "cross"?! the area of the polygon is simply zero? it is just a 4 sided polygon (left, up, right, down) with equal side length. you simply reduce the angle of the left up right and down in the red shape from the question. So looking at becoming infinity small angle the sides should be "melted" together to all in all 4. this should be also concave

Markus A. - 3 years, 7 months ago

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That would still have 8 sides - polygons don't have half-connected vertices. Furthermore, the area should be more than 0, otherwise 2 would be the answer - just two lines that are on top of each other

Alex Li - 3 years, 7 months ago

Doesn't a polygon have to have a measurable area? I believe creating a "shape with sides" with no measurable area causes it to stop being a shape, and it doesn't meet the criteria of the problem.

Brian Egedy - 3 years, 7 months ago

I did not understand anything, nor the question, nor the explanation.

Light Vision - 3 years, 7 months ago

You can take a hexagon, slice it in half from corner to corner, put a point in the center of the longest side and claim it an angle a=180° + lim x where x->0.

Dima Buchka - 3 years, 7 months ago

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If angle a is measurable, even immeasurably small, then its two legs will still result in a total of five legs. As angle a approaches zero, the definition of the polygon as "concave" becomes less convincing. At x = 0, the polygon is no longer concave.

Also you would need to adjust the other angles of the hexagon in order for the resulting shape to be equilateral.

Brian Egedy - 3 years, 7 months ago

Nice solution !

Rishu Jaar - 3 years, 7 months ago

What about rhombus ?

Sam Matt - 3 years, 7 months ago

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The word "rhombus" refers to any equilateral quadrilateral. The equality of the sides forces it to be a parallelogram. This fact is logically equivalent to the solution above.

Richard Desper - 3 years, 7 months ago

A rhombus can’t be concave

Ayush Kumar - 3 years, 7 months ago

So it appears the answer to this question is incorrect. I answered 4 and it said I was wrong.

Kerry Smyth - 3 years, 7 months ago

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No. You were wrong.

True Hoffman - 3 years, 7 months ago

You are replying to a proof of why there is no convex equilateral quadrilateral.

Richard Desper - 3 years, 7 months ago

That's because the answer is 5. See the proof above.

Brian Egedy - 3 years, 7 months ago

The proof that that there is no equilateral concave quadrilateral is called a proof by contradiction . You start with the premise that the opposite of what you are trying to prove is true. Then you show that this leads to a contradiction.

Andy Hayes - 3 years, 7 months ago

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*Proof by contradiction I don’t think a proof can be made of just contractions... hehe.

Ayush Kumar - 3 years, 7 months ago

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@Ayush Kumar Haha good catch! Fixed.

Andy Hayes - 3 years, 7 months ago

the quadrilateral concave polygon cannot be equilateral

Mariuca Rotar - 3 years, 7 months ago

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