SOLUTION: The angles of polygon are in arithmetic expression 172°,168° and 164°. How many sides does the polygon have?

Algebra ->  Polygons -> SOLUTION: The angles of polygon are in arithmetic expression 172°,168° and 164°. How many sides does the polygon have?      Log On


   



Question 1079865: The angles of polygon are in arithmetic expression 172°,168° and 164°. How many sides does the polygon have?
Answer by ikleyn(52781) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
The angles of polygon are in arithmetic expression 172°,168° and 164°. How many sides does the polygon have?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your formulation is not perfect, unfortunately.

The correct formulation is this:
     The angles of polygon are in arithmetic progression 172°,168°, 164° and so on . . . . 
     How many sides does the polygon have?

Solution

The corresponding sequence of exterior angles is 8°, 12°, 16°  and so on . . . 


It is an arithmetic progression with the first term of 8 and the common difference of 4. 


The sum of exterior angles of any (convex) polygon is 360°.

So, you need to find "n", the number of sides/vertices, from the condition 

S%5Bn%5D = 360°, where S%5Bn%5D is the sum of the first n terms of this AP.


You can use the formula for S%5Bn%5D = %28a%5B1%5D%2B%28%28n-1%29%2Ad%29%2F2%29%2An,

which gives you an equation

%288+%2B+%28%28n-1%29%2A4%29%2F2%29%2An = 360,   or, which is the same

(8 + 2*(n-1))*n = 360.


It reduces to a quadratic equation

2n^2 + 6n - 360 = 0,   which is equivalent to

n%5E2+%2B+3n+-+180 = 0. 


It can be solved by factoring

(n-12)*(n+15) = 0,

which gives you only one positive solution n = 12.

Answer. n= 12. The polygon has 12 sides.