The apothem (sometimes abbreviated as apo [1] ) 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. The word "apothem" can also refer to the length of that line segment and come from the ancient Greek ἀπόθεμα ("put away, put aside"), made of ἀπό ("off, away") and θέμα ("that which is laid down"), indicating a generic line written down. [2] Regular polygons are the only polygons that have apothems. Because of this, all the apothems in a polygon will be congruent.
The apothem a can be used to find the area of any regular n-sided polygon of side length s according to the following formula, which also states that the area is equal to the apothem multiplied by half the perimeter since ns = p.
This formula can be derived by partitioning the n-sided polygon into n congruent isosceles triangles, and then noting that the apothem is the height of each triangle, and that the area of a triangle equals half the base times the height. The following formulations are all equivalent:
An apothem of a regular polygon will always be a radius of the inscribed circle. It is also the minimum distance between any side of the polygon and its center.
This property can also be used to easily derive the formula for the area of a circle, because as the number of sides approaches infinity, the regular polygon's area approaches the area of the inscribed circle of radius r = a.
The apothem of a regular polygon can be found multiple ways.
The apothem a of a regular n-sided polygon with side length s, or circumradius R, can be found using the following formula:
The apothem can also be found by
These formulae can still be used even if only the perimeter p and the number of sides n are known because s = p/n.
Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or plane area refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while surface area refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-dimensional object. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat. It is the two-dimensional analogue of the length of a curve or the volume of a solid . Two different regions may have the same area ; by synecdoche, "area" sometimes is used to refer to the region, as in a "polygonal area".
In geometry, an n-gonal antiprism or n-antiprism is a polyhedron composed of two parallel direct copies of an n-sided polygon, connected by an alternating band of 2n triangles. They are represented by the Conway notation An.
In geometry, a polygon is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain.
In mathematics, the trigonometric functions are real functions which relate an angle of a right-angled triangle to ratios of two side lengths. They are widely used in all sciences that are related to geometry, such as navigation, solid mechanics, celestial mechanics, geodesy, and many others. They are among the simplest periodic functions, and as such are also widely used for studying periodic phenomena through Fourier analysis.
A right triangle or right-angled triangle, sometimes called an orthogonal triangle or rectangular triangle, is a triangle in which two sides are perpendicular, forming a right angle.
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In geometry, an octagon is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon.
In geometry, a decagon is a ten-sided polygon or 10-gon. The total sum of the interior angles of a simple decagon is 1440°.
In Euclidean geometry, a regular polygon is a polygon that is direct equiangular and equilateral. Regular polygons may be either convex, star or skew. In the limit, a sequence of regular polygons with an increasing number of sides approximates a circle, if the perimeter or area is fixed, or a regular apeirogon, if the edge length is fixed.
In geometry, a heptagon or septagon is a seven-sided polygon or 7-gon.
In geometry, a circular segment or disk segment is a region of a disk which is "cut off" from the rest of the disk by a straight line. The complete line is known as a secant, and the section inside the disk as a chord.
In geometry, a dodecagon, or 12-gon, is any twelve-sided polygon.
Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, geodesics are great circles. Spherical trigonometry is of great importance for calculations in astronomy, geodesy, and navigation.
In geometry, a cupola is a solid formed by joining two polygons, one with twice as many edges as the other, by an alternating band of isosceles triangles and rectangles. If the triangles are equilateral and the rectangles are squares, while the base and its opposite face are regular polygons, the triangular, square, and pentagonal cupolae all count among the Johnson solids, and can be formed by taking sections of the cuboctahedron, rhombicuboctahedron, and rhombicosidodecahedron, respectively.
In geometry, the semiperimeter of a polygon is half its perimeter. Although it has such a simple derivation from the perimeter, the semiperimeter appears frequently enough in formulas for triangles and other figures that it is given a separate name. When the semiperimeter occurs as part of a formula, it is typically denoted by the letter s.
In geometry, the area enclosed by a circle of radius r is πr2. Here the Greek letter π represents the constant ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159.
In geometry, a pentagon is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°.
In trigonometry, Mollweide's formula is a pair of relationships between sides and angles in a triangle.
In trigonometry, the law of cotangents is a relationship among the lengths of the sides of a triangle and the cotangents of the halves of the three angles.