Triangles

and Quadrilaterals and Napoleon's

theoremm---Some Interesting Results
Srinivasan Nenmeli Ph D

Introduction
This article helps you to explore some
interesting results or theorems from
elementary 'Geometry' to stimulate your
thinking and strengthen your background in
this fascinating subject. Many of the
results are rarely mentioned in regular text
books. They can be posed as "challenge
problems" by teachers for students aspiring
for greater depth in geometry.
You are encouraged to find the proofs for

many of them. Some clues or hints are given

for developing the proofs.

Triangles

Let us begin with right triangles.

1 To Prove:
The area of an isosceles right triangle is
equal to (1/4)th of the square of the
hypotenuse.
Hint: Draw a square ABCD.Draw the diagonal
AC. ABC is an isosceles right triangle.

2 To Prove:
The midpoint of the hypotenuse is
equidistant from the three vertices.

The radius of the circumscribed circle of a

right triangle is half the hypotenuse.
Hint: Draw a right triangle ABC such that
angle ABC is 90 degrees. Draw a semicircle
with AC as the diameter. Note that the angle
ABC is enclosed in a semicircle and
therefore measures 90 degrees.

2 Viviani's theorem:
Draw an equilateral triangle ABC. Let P be
any point inside the triangle. Drop
perpendiculars from P to the three sides,
with points Q,R and S on AB, BC and CA.
Now the distances are PQ=u,PR=v and PS=w.
Viviani's theorem states that:

u+v+w = h , the altitude of the triangle.

Prove this!
[Note: The point P can be on the triangle
also. ]
Hint: Find the area of three smaller
triangles : PAB, PBC,PCA.
The sum of the areas of these three
triangles = area of ABC= (1/2)BC.h.

Who was Viviani?
Vincenzo Viviani (1622-1703) was a secretary
to Galileo and a student of both Galileo and
his student Torricelli.
Viviani compiled the collected works of
Galileo and also wrote a biography of

Galileo.
In 1660, Viviani measured the speed of
sound by detecting a canon fire and
measuring the time it takes for the canon
sound to reach some distance.
He was appointed as court mathematician by
the Grand Duke. He gave money for
constructing the tomb of Galileo in the
Church of Santa Croce.
Viviani's theorem has many interesting
extensions and can be applied to three
dimensional objects like regular
tetrahedron.

Quadrilaterals

1 Varignon parallelogram
Draw any arbitrary quadrialateral [convex]
ABCD. Let P,Q,R and S be the midpoints of
its sides AB,BC, CD and DA. Join PQRS and
show that PQRS is a paralleogram.
PQRS is called "Varignon Paralleogram".
Hint: Draw the diagonal BD. Show that PS and
QR are parallel to BD. Likewise show that PQ
and SR are parallel.

2 Show that the sum of the sides of Varignon
Paralleogram PQRS [the perimeter] is equal
to the sum of the diagonals AC and BD of the
original quadrilateral ABCD.
3 Show that the area of PQRS is half of the

area of ABCD.
Napoleon's theorem
Napoleon Bonaparte [1769-1821] , Emperor of
France from 1804 to 1815, was also a keen
student of mathematics. He was interviewed
by Laplace for entrance into Military
Academy. Later Napoleon became a member of
the math section of French National
Institute--a scientific society.
He took the famous mathematician Joseph
Fourier and other scholars with him during
the military campaign in Egypt. He brought
several mathematicians such as Lorenzo
Mascheroni , Laplace, Lagrange and Mange to
his royal court to discuss mathematics.

There is a famous theorem attributed to

him: Napoleon's theorem. It is a moot point
whether he discovered or developed this
theorem or proved it himself or took it from
earlier literature. The geometer,H S M
Coxeter had cast some doubts that Napoleon
had sufficient math skills to come up with
such a theorem.
The theorem is as follows.
Construct any arbitrary triangle ABC . Draw
three equilateral triangles externally on
the three sides. Find the centroids of the
three new triangles, say P,Q and R. [A
centroid is found by drawing perpendiculars
to opposite sides from the three vertices

and their point of intersection.]

This theorem states that PQR forms an
equilateral triangle.
There are several proofs to this theorem
and they can be found in several web sites;
[for instance, see the website:
"mathpages.com".]
I could not find any application for this
theorem so far...it is indeed a math
curiosity. One could ,however, use this
construction for making nice designs such as
tilings..

Comments are most welcome:
nenmelisrinivasan@gmail.com

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