World’s Most Complicated Geometry Diagram

Published by patrick honner on

Well, maybe not the most complicated diagram in the world.  But this is definitely the most complicated diagram I’ve ever seen a student put on the board in order to solve a problem they created.

Most impressive was that the diagram was entirely relevant to the problem.  And as a side note, she was able to solve it!


patrick honner

Math teacher in Brooklyn, New York

7 Comments

John Golden · March 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm

PLEASE share the problem! You’re killing me here.

    MrHonner · March 8, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    I believe this problem began its life as a configuration of gears, and the student ended up exploring some complicated geometry while trying to actually construct the appropriate diagram in Geometer’s Sketchpad. I think this diagram is where that attempted construction led her.

Andy Huynh · March 8, 2012 at 6:41 pm

Is it related to the Apollonius Point?

    MrHonner · March 8, 2012 at 7:54 pm

    Andy, I don’t believe that the student looked into the Apollonius point. in part because I’m not familiar with it myself. Thanks to your suggestion, I looked into it, and it definitely seems related.

    http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ApolloniusPoint.html

    I’ll be sure to pass the information along to her. Thanks!

Peter Katzlinger · May 13, 2014 at 11:15 am

Hello Mr Honner,
what is your opinion of the following structures?

http://www.geogebratube.org/student/m45108
http://www.geogebratube.org/student/m92336
http://www.geogebratube.org/material/show/id/55714

Greetings from Munich
Peter
(GeoGebraTube Petrus3743)

    MrHonner · May 13, 2014 at 9:30 pm

    These are pretty complicated geometry diagrams, Peter! You might have a claim to the title. My German’s a little rusty, which makes them even more complicated. I take it these are constructions of rational approximations of pi?

Peter Katzlinger · May 14, 2014 at 5:05 am

Thanks for the quick answer,
to me it similar my English is rusty!
Please excuse my bad English, I use a translation tool …
Yes, these are constructions of rational approximations of Pi The principle is simple, see http://www.udo-brechtel.de/index.php?m=mathe&s=mathe. Example with rupture 355/113 …
The construction “3.0 + 31 decimal places of Pi …” is exactly the same as the “3.0 + 100 decimal places of Pi…”, which is also found on GeoGebra!
Should you even more interested, you can send me an e-mail.

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