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Andrea has 3 tiles.

One is a regular octagon, one is a regular pentagon and one is a regular hexagon. Andrea thinks the 3 tiles will fit together perfectly as shown in the diagram.
Use calculations to prove that she is wrong.

Andrea has 3 tiles. One is a regular octagon, one is a regular pentagon and one is-example-1
User Hhh
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1 Answer

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Andrea's assumption is correct: the three tiles won't fit together perfectly because sum of the interior angles is not 360 deg

How to show the diagram will not work

The proof will be achieved using interior angles of regular polygons. This can be calculated using the formula:

Interior Angle = (n - 2) * 180 / n

where n is the number of sides.

Solving using n for various cases

An octagon (n = 8) has interior angles of 135

A pentagon (n = 5) has interior angles of 108

A hexagon (n = 6) has interior angles of 120

Angle at a point is 360, therefore adding the angles suppose ot be 360

135 + 108 + 120 = 363

Since \363 ≠ 360 Andrea's assumption is correct: the three tiles won't fit together perfectly

User Stephen Sorensen
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