Solving Quadrilaterals with Known Angles & 1 Side

  • Thread starter Thread starter Physics is Phun
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Angles
Physics is Phun
Messages
100
Reaction score
0
to solve a quadrilateral when you know all four angles and one side? I can't seem to find any way to solve the other 3 sides in this one question I am working on.
thanks :biggrin:
 
Mathematics news on Phys.org
seems that it should be determined by that data, i.e. the shape should be determiend and then you have one side to set the scale, provided you know which two angles the given side is between. but a formula has not come to mind yet for their lengths.


Wait! what about a rectangle!?
 
Last edited:
No, it's not possible. For example, suppose that all of the angles were right angles. You have one side's length, but how would you know whether the figure is a square or a rectangle? You can't. Suppose the side you are given has length 1, and all the angles are right. The side across from the given side must be 1, but the other two could be anything.
 
mathwonk said:
Wait! what about a rectangle!?

Or any other quadrilateral for that matter:

assume that the fixed side is length one and as drawn in the plane is the interval [0,1] on the x axis. extend the sides incident to the ends of this segment to infinity, and draw any line parallel to the side "opposite" our fixed side, then all angles are the same and the other sides can be an uncountable number of options.
 
yeah that mental picture conviced me but i thought i would just mention the easy one.
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. In Dirac’s Principles of Quantum Mechanics published in 1930 he introduced a “convenient notation” he referred to as a “delta function” which he treated as a continuum analog to the discrete Kronecker delta. The Kronecker delta is simply the indexed components of the identity operator in matrix algebra Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/what-exactly-is-diracs-delta-function/ by...
Fermat's Last Theorem has long been one of the most famous mathematical problems, and is now one of the most famous theorems. It simply states that the equation $$ a^n+b^n=c^n $$ has no solutions with positive integers if ##n>2.## It was named after Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665). The problem itself stems from the book Arithmetica by Diophantus of Alexandria. It gained popularity because Fermat noted in his copy "Cubum autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos quadratoquadratos, et...
Thread 'Imaginary Pythagorus'
I posted this in the Lame Math thread, but it's got me thinking. Is there any validity to this? Or is it really just a mathematical trick? Naively, I see that i2 + plus 12 does equal zero2. But does this have a meaning? I know one can treat the imaginary number line as just another axis like the reals, but does that mean this does represent a triangle in the complex plane with a hypotenuse of length zero? Ibix offered a rendering of the diagram using what I assume is matrix* notation...
Back
Top