Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:09:01.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Constructions with a rigid compass

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2016

H. T. Croft
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
T. W. Körner
Affiliation:
Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Extract

This article is addressed to anyone who has ever doodled idly with a fixed compass on a blank sheet of paper. Perhaps he has drawn a circle centre O, picked a point P1 on it, drawn a circle centre P1 intersecting the original circle at P2 and P3, drawn a circle centre P2 producing two new points of intersection, slowly building up an interlacing hexagonal pattern II of points each a distance at least R from each other. Then he has picked some point P* not of II, and drawn a circle centre P*, and almost immediately the pretty pattern has been replaced by a jumble of intersections apparently covering the whole of the paper.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1978 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Graham, R., Problem 48, Proceedings of the 1963 Number Theory Conference, Boulder, Colorado, 100.Google Scholar