Chapter 7
Polygon Formulas
IN THIS CHAPTER
Finding the area of quadrilaterals
Computing the area of regular polygons
Determining the number of diagonals in a polygon
Heating things up with the number of degrees in a polygon
In this chapter, you take a break from proofs and move on to problems that have a little more to do with the real world. I emphasize little because the shapes you deal with here — such as trapezoids, hexagons, octagons, and yep, even pentadecagons (15 sides) — aren’t exactly things you encounter outside of math class on a regular basis. But at least the concepts you work with here — the length and size and shape of polygons — are fairly ordinary things. For nearly everyone, relating to visual, real-world things like this is easier than relating to proofs, which are more in the realm of pure mathematics.
The Area of Quadrilaterals
I’m sure you’ve had to calculate the area of a square or rectangle before, whether it was in a math class or in some more practical situation, such as when you wanted to know the area of a room in your house. In this section, you see ...
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