An angle standing on a chord
circle-angle is one function. Everything below came out of it during this
build, at parameters taken from the essays rather than invented for this page — so a figure
here is the same figure a reader meets in an essay, and if the generator changes, this page
changes with it.
With nothing chosen
The classical centres as three weights each
Three centres that always fall on one line
The nine-point circle, touching four others
A quadrilateral inscribed in a circle
Four apexes, one angle
What it checks while it draws
Collected by running the family and recording what it asserted, not written here. The count is how many separate times the claim was put to the test while these drawings were made.
- at x = 0.00 the signed product is d² − r² ×21
- at x = -9.00 the signed product is d² − r² ×20
- the distance between points 1 and 2 is the fraction 3/5 ×10
- point 1 of the nine is the same distance from the centre ×9
- the chord for inscribed angle 10° is 2R sin 10° ×9
- the 4-by-4 count checks pair by pair ×4
- the chord at 0° splits into pieces whose product is r² − d² ×4
- the half-chord over the split 2 + 8 has square 16 ×4
- the apex at 120° sees AB at the same angle ×3
- the secant at 180° has near × far = 144 ×3
- a corner of a piece is α+60° ×2
- a corner of a piece is β+60° ×2
- a corner of a piece is γ+60° ×2
- each third at A is 26° ×2
- each third at B is 18° ×2
- each third at C is 16° ×2
- the assembled triangle's angle at A is 78° ×2
- the assembled triangle's angle at B is 54° ×2
- the assembled triangle's angle at C is 48° ×2
- 1/MX − 1/MY is the same for every pair of chords ×1
- 325 = 5²·13 is a sum of two squares in 24 ordered, signed ways ×1
- a corner of a piece is 60° ×1
- a corner of a piece is α ×1
- a corner of a piece is β ×1
- a corner of a piece is γ ×1
- a hexagon has fourteen triangulations ×1
- a hexagon on a circle has a constant total ×1
- a hexagon well off its circle does not ×1
- A lies on the circle ×1
- a triangle whose incentre is on the Euler line has two equal sides ×1
- a trisector and the far side are not parallel ×1
- AB = cos α ×1
- abc/4K is the radius of the circle through the corners ×1
- across every random butterfly the two distances agree ×1
- AD = cos β ×1
- all six feet are the same distance from the midpoint of P and P* ×1
- among isosceles triangles the margin is smallest at the equilateral one ×1
- and each is as long as the least total distance ×1
- and each product of two still fixes a corner of the trisectors' triangle ×1
- and its incentre is the inner circle's centre ×1
- and its second and third ×1
- and its y coordinate ×1
- and not after three ×1
- and only the flat one is equilateral ×1
- and PA·PB = PC·PD ×1
- and so do the other two ×1
- and so does the third ×1
- and so is the nine-point centre with two of them ×1
- and that distance is half the radius of the circle through the corners ×1
- and the angle at C in the diameter's triangle is right ×1
- and the centroid sits twice as far from the orthocentre as from the circumcentre ×1
- and the equilateral triangle is the smallest margin of all ×1
- and the incentre stays off the line on every scalene triangle in it ×1
- and the same construction on the other trisectors is not ×1
- and the same on the other side ×1
- and the tangent meets the radius at a right angle ×1
- and the three pieces make up the side ×1
- and their radii differ ×1
- and touching each escribed one ×1
- as the point nears the circle its conjugate runs away ×1
- at Euler's distance the rotation number is one third ×1
- B and D lie on the circle with diameter AC ×1
- B lies on the circle ×1
- BC = sin α ×1
- BD = sin(α + β): a chord of a unit-diameter circle is the sine of the angle it subtends ×1
- CD = sin β ×1
- climbing from random sets of four comes close to the tetrahedron, and for five and six points the climbs stall above the chain ×1
- conjugating twice returns the point ×1
- cos of an odd multiple is invariant and of an even multiple is not ×1
- each junction is 120° ×1
- each pair is two incidences: each point on the other's circle ×1
- each pair of Malfatti circles touches ×1
- each side over the sine of the opposite angle is the diameter ×1
- each trisector cuts its angle in exact thirds ×1
- eighteen of the twenty-seven are equilateral ×1
- equal products put D on the circle through A, B and C ×1
- equilateral exactly when the three choices do not add to 2 mod 3 ×1
- every angle of the triangle is below 120° ×1
- every apex on the arc gives the same angle ×1
- every chain of four tangents closes ×1
- every chain of three tangents closes ×1
- every chord through M has the same product of pieces ×1
- every conjugate lies on one conic ×1
- every prime in the best squared distance leaves remainder 1 on division by 4 ×1
- every side of every equilateral one makes (B − C)/3 with the base, give or take 60° ×1
- every side subtends 120° at the point ×1
- every triangle in the sweep has its nine-point circle touching its inscribed one ×1
- every triangle in the sweep puts its nine points on one circle ×1
- every triangulation of a heptagon has four flips ×1
- every triangulation of the cyclic hexagon has the same total ×1
- every trisector triangle in the sweep is equilateral ×1
- for every triangle the signed distances add to R + r ×1
- for the Fermat point the path is straight ×1
- greedy beats Malfatti on every triangle of the grid ×1
- in both coordinates ×1
- in the corrected coordinate every step advances by the same fraction of a turn ×1
- in the plane both facts hold ×1
- including PQ itself ×1
- inscribed angles on the same chord are equal ×1
- junctions in the hexagon's shortest network ×1
- Newton's method solves Malfatti's three side equations ×1
- no random set goes below √3/2 ×1
- OI² = R(R − 2r) on every triangle ×1
- on the ellipse the wings cross on opposite sides ×1
- on the ellipse the wings cut the chord equally ×1
- on the hyperbolic plane the three sides are not equal ×1
- on the parabola the wings cross on opposite sides ×1
- on the parabola the wings cut the chord equally ×1
- on the sphere the spread grows with the excess while the triangle is small ×1
- on the sphere the three cubed rotations still compose to nothing ×1
- on the sphere the three sides are not equal ×1
- one angle, not several ×1
- one segment per pair ×1
- opposite angles add to a straight angle ×1
- opposite angles of a cyclic quadrilateral add to π ×1
- past five points the ratio falls steadily, towards about 0.784 ×1
- Ptolemy: the diagonals' product is the sum of the products of opposite sides ×1
- pushed off the circle, the totals spread ×1
- random points in a cube are far from the worst case: averages above nine-tenths, minima above the tetrahedron's ×1
- rotating A by 60° about B gives the apex C′ ×1
- so BC / sin A is the diameter ×1
- so do the angles at C and B ×1
- so the circumradius is at least twice the inradius ×1
- the angle at D stands on the same arc BC as the angle at A ×1
- the angle between the chord and the tangent equals the inscribed angle ×1
- the angle on a diameter is a right angle ×1
- the angles add to 180° ×1
- the angles at A and C stand on the same arc BD ×1
- the angles at A and D stand on the same arc and are equal ×1
- the angles at D and B stand on the same arc AC ×1
- the apex is on the major arc ×1
- the apex lies on the circle ×1
- the broken path C′P′PC has the length of the total distance from P ×1
- the centre's angle is twice the apex's ×1
- the centroid has a larger total than the Fermat point ×1
- the centroid's partner is the symmedian point ×1
- the chain does not close after three steps ×1
- the chain's corners fall in proportion to one over the tangent length ×1
- the chord is a diameter ×1
- the circumcentre, centroid and orthocentre are collinear ×1
- the circumcentre, the centroid and the orthocentre lie on one line ×1
- the collinearity holds across the sweep ×1
- the conic passes through O, H and the symmedian point ×1
- the construction and the minimisation find the same point ×1
- the corner C has an angle of at least 120° ×1
- the crossing of the construction lines is no longer the minimum ×1
- the distance satisfies Fuss's relation ×1
- the exterior angle is twice the base angle ×1
- the Fermat views take no options ×1
- the greedy circles cover more of the triangle than Malfatti's ×1
- the grid is between 3 and 14 points on a side ×1
- the hexagon with its centre attains √3/2 ×1
- the hexagon's shortest network has length 3√3 ×1
- the incentre is its own partner ×1
- the incentre is not on that line, which the determinant reports rather than being told ×1
- the incentres make a right angle at every corner ×1
- the inner circle is less than half the outer ×1
- the inner triangle's first two sides are equal ×1
- the iteration finds a network no longer than the spanning tree ×1
- the least total is at the wide corner ×1
- the lines from A and B are not parallel ×1
- the lines from B and C are not parallel ×1
- the lines from C and A are not parallel ×1
- the lines from corners to opposite apexes are equal ×1
- the marked lengths are realised in many directions ×1
- the meeting point has weights a·sec⁴(A/4) on the corners ×1
- the named quantities split as the angle criterion predicts ×1
- the network with two 120° junctions has length 1 + √3 ×1
- the nine-point centre is the midpoint of that line ×1
- the nine-point circle touches the escribed opposite A circle from outside ×1
- the nine-point circle touches the escribed opposite B circle from outside ×1
- the nine-point circle touches the escribed opposite C circle from outside ×1
- the nine-point circle touches the inscribed circle from inside ×1
- the orthocentre's partner is the circumcentre ×1
- the pair count by direction agrees with checking every pair ×1
- the pocket beside the second circle never holds the largest third circle ×1
- the point is inside the circle ×1
- the quadrilateral's angles add to 360° ×1
- the regular simplex's ratio falls with every dimension, from √3/2 ×1
- the regular tetrahedron saves 18.7%, and a chain of twelve points along the helix saves more ×1
- the rotation number never increases as the inner circle moves out ×1
- the sample includes obtuse triangles, where one distance counts negative ×1
- the search never goes below √3/2 ×1
- the shape sweep is between 6 and 60 steps on a side ×1
- the short-side pairing wins and the diagonal pairing is worst ×1
- the side is 8R sin α sin β sin γ ×1
- the side opposite A makes (B − C)/3 with BC ×1
- the splitters at A and B are not parallel ×1
- the splitters at B and C are not parallel ×1
- the splitters at C and A are not parallel ×1
- the spread is rounding error exactly for the invariant functions ×1
- the spread shrinks in proportion to the excess ×1
- the Steiner views take no options ×1
- the sweep covers a decent share of the shape space ×1
- the sweep found enough non-degenerate triangles to mean something ×1
- the sweep found enough triangles ×1
- the sweep found enough triangles to mean something ×1
- the sweep runs over between 20 and 2000 triangles ×1
- the tangent length squared is the same number ×1
- the tangent ray on the far side of the chord makes the inscribed angle with it ×1
- the third circle goes deeper exactly when k(α)² beats k(β) ×1
- the third line passes through the same point ×1
- the three angles are the angles of a triangle ×1
- the three angles are those of a triangle ×1
- the three angles are those of a triangle and none is a sliver ×1
- the three lines meet at one point on every triangle of the sweep ×1
- the three reflected lines are parallel ×1
- the three reflected lines meet where the weights say, a²/x : b²/y : c²/z ×1
- the three unit pulls cancel at the Fermat point ×1
- the triangle has three corners and some area ×1
- the triangles are similar, so PA/PD = PC/PB ×1
- the two circles are not concentric ×1
- the two diagonals give the same total ×1
- the two halves are the whole angle ×1
- the two sides agree at every angle ×1
- the two sides of a piece are not parallel ×1
- the two triangulations agree on Σ cos 3x and disagree on Σ cos 2x ×1
- the two triangulations' inradii add to the same total ×1
- the view is one the family draws ×1
- the weights for the centroid give its x coordinate ×1
- the weights for the circumcentre give its x coordinate ×1
- the weights for the incentre give its x coordinate ×1
- the weights for the nine-point centre give its x coordinate ×1
- the weights for the orthocentre give its x coordinate ×1
- the wings cross on opposite sides of M ×1
- the wings cut the chord at equal distances from its midpoint ×1
- three roads meet at 120° at every junction ×1
- triangle OPA is isosceles ×1
- triangle OPB is isosceles ×1
- triangulations of a heptagon ×1
- two touching circles on one line touch it 2√(r r′) apart ×1
- unequal products put D off it ×1
- up to seven points no branching pattern beats the one that follows the chain ×1
- which passes through the three corners ×1
- while MX − MY itself varies ×1
- with the circles concentric every step turns by the same angle ×1
- Σ cos is constant over the flip graph ×1
Where it is called
Every figure on this list is drawn by the same rule, so a change to the rule changes all of them at once. That is why the list is published.
A centre is three weights
Write each classical centre as a weighted average of the corners and a coincidence becomes a determinant. The Euler line is then one number rather than a construction, the whole catalogue becomes mechanical, and the reason one centre is missing from it is visible in the weights.
GeometryA chain of tetrahedra saves more
In the plane, junctions never seem to shorten a network of roads by more than the equilateral triangle's 13.4%. In space the regular tetrahedron allows 18.7%, and the obvious guess — that it is the worst case, as the triangle is in the plane — is wrong. Points spaced along a chain of tetrahedra glued face to face do better with every point added: 20.5% at twelve, 21.4% at sixty, and about 21.6% in the limit. Random points come nowhere near, and a search that only goes downhill does not find the chain.
GeometryA total hung in a temple
Put a polygon's corners on a circle, cut it into triangles, and add up the radii of the circles inscribed in the triangles. Cut it a different way and the total is the same — for all fourteen ways of cutting a hexagon, to every digit. The fact was painted on a wooden tablet in a Japanese temple around 1800, and the reason for it is a theorem about one triangle and the distances from its circumcentre to its sides.
GeometryA triangle that fits once fits everywhere
Put one circle inside another and try to fit a triangle between them, its corners on the outer circle and its sides touching the inner. Usually no triangle fits. But if one does, then one fits starting from every point of the outer circle — and whether it does is decided by a single equation in the two radii and the distance between the centres.
GeometryAn angle that does not care where it stands
Fix two points on a circle and look at them from anywhere else on the far arc. The angle is the same from every one of those places, and it is exactly half the angle at the centre.
GeometryEighteen equilateral triangles
Every angle of a triangle has three trisectors, not one, once the angle and its outside are both counted. Choosing one at each corner gives twenty-seven ways to cut out a triangle, and eighteen of them give an equilateral one. The nine that fail are exactly the choices whose labels add to 2, 5 or 8 — and all eighteen equilateral triangles have their sides in the same three directions, fixed by a third of the difference between two angles.
GeometryEvery point has a partner across the bisectors
Draw the three lines from the corners of a triangle through any point, reflect each in the bisector of its own angle, and the three reflections meet again. The pairing this makes swaps the centroid with the symmedian point and the orthocentre with the circumcentre, bends every straight line into a conic through the corners, and sends the circumcircle to infinity.
GeometryEvery ray comes back to the other focus
An ellipse has two foci and one property everybody remembers: the distances to them add to a constant. What that property forces is stranger and more useful — a mirror shaped like an ellipse sends every ray leaving one focus, in every direction, through the other.
GeometryEvery side measured by one diameter
In any triangle, divide each side by the sine of the angle opposite it: the three answers are equal. That much is the law of sines, and it is usually left there. The common answer has a name — it is the diameter of the circle through the triangle's corners — and the reason is the inscribed angle once more. It is also why the sine was first a half-chord, why Ptolemy's theorem is the addition formula, and why a circle can hold infinitely many points all at rational distances from each other.
GeometryHow many pairs can be one apart
Place n points in the plane and count the pairs exactly one unit apart. A square grid with its spacing as the unit gives two pairs per point; the same grid with the unit chosen as a length it realises in many directions — the square root of 5, of 25, of 65, of 325 — gives three, five, eight. Counting points on circles caps the total at a constant times n to the four-thirds. Between that cap and the grids the truth has not moved since 1984, and at every size anyone can draw, the two look alike.
GeometryNine points on one circle
Three midpoints, three feet of altitudes and three more midpoints. Nine points defined in three unrelated ways, on an arbitrary triangle, and all nine sit on one circle — checked here on two hundred and forty triangles as well as on the drawn one.
GeometryOne circle touching four
The nine-point circle touches the inscribed circle and each of the three escribed ones. Nothing in its construction mentions them, the two families of centres are built from different kinds of number, and the tangency is four exact equalities between distances and radii.
GeometryOne number for every chord through a point
Draw any line through a point and let it cut a circle twice. The two distances from the point to the circle multiply to the same number whichever line is drawn — inside, outside, or grazing as a tangent. The number belongs to the point, and the reason it does not depend on the line is the inscribed angle: two chords through a point cut out two triangles with the same angles.
GeometrySeven pieces and an equilateral middle
Morley's theorem has two proofs worth knowing, and they run in opposite directions. The trigonometric one starts from the triangle and computes each side of the inner one as 8R sin α sin β sin γ, symmetric in the three angles. Conway's starts from an equilateral triangle, builds six pieces round it from their angles alone, and shows they fit — so the triangle they make is whatever triangle was wanted, and its middle is equilateral because it was built that way.
GeometryThe point nearest in total to three corners
Three towns want one depot with the least total road to all of them. The answer is not the centroid or any of the classical centres: it is the point from which every side of the triangle is seen at 120°, found by building equilateral triangles on the sides. Three straight lines through it have the same length, and that length is the least total. When an angle of the triangle reaches 120°, the answer jumps to that corner — and the same 120° rule shapes soap films and the shortest networks joining many points.
GeometryThe sums a triangulation cannot change
The Japanese theorem says the inradii of any triangulation of a cyclic polygon add to the same total. Write the inradius as a sum of cosines of the angles, and the theorem becomes one case of a rule that fits in a line: a sum of f over every angle of every triangle ignores the triangulation exactly when f(x) + f(π − x) is constant. cos 3x qualifies, cos 2x does not, and the proof is the inscribed-angle theorem applied to a single flipped diagonal.
GeometryThe trisectors on a sphere almost agree
Draw Morley's construction on a sphere and the triangle the trisectors cut out is not equilateral — but its sides agree to within a tenth of a percent even when the angles add to 222°. Every step of the rotation proof survives on the sphere except one, and that one is the angle sum.
GeometryThree circles that touch and are not the largest
In 1803 Gian Francesco Malfatti asked how to cut three round columns from a triangular block of marble with as little waste as possible, and answered with three circles each touching the other two and two sides. The circles exist in every triangle and are found by solving three equations. They are never the answer to his question: the plain greedy rule — the inscribed circle first, then the largest circle that still fits, twice — always does better, by 1.4 per cent on the equilateral triangle and by almost double on a thin one.
GeometryThree trisectors and a triangle nobody expected
Cut every angle of a triangle into three. The trisectors nearest each side meet in three points, and those three points are always the corners of an equilateral triangle — for every triangle there is, with no exceptions and no reason anybody finds obvious.
GeometryWhat a junction can save
Join a set of towns by roads that may meet only at towns, and the shortest such network is easy to find. Allow junctions anywhere and the network gets shorter — but never, it is conjectured, by more than 13.4%, the saving the Fermat point makes on an equilateral triangle. Computed exactly on 1,304 random sets of up to seven towns, the average saving is about 3%. An adversarial search drives it down to the bound and no further, and a hexagon with its centre attains it exactly. The proof of the bound that was accepted for twenty years has a gap.
GeometryWings that cut a chord equally
Take a chord of a circle and its midpoint. Draw any two more chords through the midpoint, join their ends crosswise, and the two crossing lines — the butterfly's wings — cut the first chord at equal distances from the middle. The proof is the inscribed angle and the power of a point working together; move the point off the middle and what survives is a law about reciprocals; replace the circle by any conic and the theorem does not notice.