Question 180170: 7.. Explain the difference between congruent and similar figures ? Found 2 solutions by eperette, solver91311:Answer by eperette(173) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Congruent are figures that are exactly the same...meaning their side lengths are the same and their interior/exterior angles are the same....you can create a congruent figure by rotating, translating, or reflecting the original....
Similar figures look the same but their side lengths are proportional to each other and their interior/exterior angles are the same....you can create a similar figure by dilating the original figure (in other words making it smaller or larger by a scale factor)
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
The elementary intuitive difference is that congruent figures are the same shape and size. Similar figures are the same shape, but not necessarily the same size. Note that if two figures are congruent, then they are also similar, but not vice-versa.
The analytic geometry definintion says that if the Euclidian distance between any two points on one figure is equal to the Euclidian distance between the two corresponding points on the other figure, then the figures are congruent. By extention, the figures would be similar if the comparison of the Euclidian distance between such points is always identically proportional between the two figures.
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