What is the largest equilateral triangle that can be inscribed in a regular pentagon with side length 1?
my intuition says it will look something like this: |dw:1333697437838:dw|
theres probably an easier way but the only thing i can think of is to create a system of equations that that must satisfy
could you walk me through it?
i honestly dont know how exactly... but i could exaplin to you my thought process
what level math is this for?
haha really high level
yea its not an easy problem
lets start with the angles
each one is 72 degrees
This is no where near high level mathematics! Hint: http://www.drking.org.uk/hexagons/misc/deriv1.html (This is for hexagon)
that doesnt actually prove thats the biggest one but if we assume so its just simple trig
how did you know that the other angle is 72?
360/5
no it would be 540/5 sum interior = 180(n-2)
ahh yes 72 is the central angles
clearly its bed time for me
|dw:1333699275154:dw| now use law of sines \[x = \frac{\sin 108}{\sin 48}\]
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