Does anybody know anything about apothems?

Question

anonymous · Answer

The apothem of a regular polygon is a line segment from the center to the midpoint of one of its sides. Equivalently, it is the line drawn from the center of the polygon that is perpendicular to one of its sides

anonymous · Answer

Well, I understand that, but, if I had a decagon with a side of 12, how would I find its apothem?

anonymous · Answer

use trigononmetry..

anonymous · Answer

LOL I am silly.

anonymous · Answer

6cot(18degrees)

anonymous · Answer

So, in a graphing calc. I could put in 6 cos 18 and that would give me the answer?

anonymous · Answer

take a triangle with base as one side and the vertex at  the centre of the decagon..then altitude to the base(side of the decagon) is the apothem. Also observe that angle at the vertex(centre of polygon) is 2pi/10. The length of base is 12

anonymous · Answer

yups..buddy..but be sure 18 is in degrees and its same as pi/10 in radians

anonymous · Answer

You're awesome!  Thank you.

anonymous · Answer

well so are u..good luck! :)

anonymous · Answer

Wikipaedia has a good explanation

anonymous · Answer

Thank you sooooo much.