Divide a circular disk into seven parts with a straightedge and compass such that each part has the same area and perimeter.

(In reply to Heptagon vs. 180 rotation by nikki)

Nikki, draw any non-concurrent line through an endpoint of the line segment you want to divide into n equal parts. starting at the intersection/endpoint, use the compass (set at any length you want) to walk down the line and make n equally spaced points. Draw a line from the the nth point to the "other" endpoint of your line segment. Then for each of the remaining n-1 point, construct a line that passes through this point is parallel to the last line drawn. These parallel lines will divide up your line segment into n equal parts. There is no need for the first line to be any particular angle from the line segment (other than 0 or 180). Jer's picture shows this nicely with the dotted lines.

Make sense? Hope this helps :-)

Posted by owl on 2004-12-10 21:55:32