Diagonals Illuminated

Nina Mertens

PART I:

Question #1:

Number of sides: 4 Number of sides: 5

Number of sides: 6 Number of sides: 7

How I counted the diagonals:
You start at one point on the shape and count how many diagonals there are from that one
point. Then you move onto the next point and that one will have the same number of diagonals
because it is right next to that point. Then you go to the next point and it is one less because
one diagonal is already taken up so it is not counted anymore. As you go to each point it
decreases by one and there will always be two points with zero because all the diagonals will
already be counted for.

Question #2

SIDES DIAGONALS

3 0

4 2

5 5

6 9

7 14

8 20

9 27

10 35

11 44

12 54

Part A:
Pattern is as the sides increase the diagonals increase by one number more than the previous
one increases by

Part B:
A 12 sided polygon has 51 diagonals
Question #3
This holds true because each time you add new sides the diagonal for each point increases by
one and more are added and always two points have zero diagonals and two points share the
same greatest number of diagonals.

Example:

PART II:

Out=?
Formula is needed

Guess and check:

x-3 (only works for zero)

Try other forms:

x2-3 (none work for this)

x-3 (if plug in 3 for x it equals zero which is correct)

(plug in 4 it equals 1 which is wrong)

2(x-3)

plug in 3 it equals zero (correct)

2(3-3)

2(0)=0

2(x-3)

plug in 4 it equals 2 (correct)

2(4-3)

2(1)=2

2(x-3)

plug in 5 it equals 4 ( wrong )

2(5-3)

2(2)=4

Try multiplying (x-3) by x

x(x-3)

3(3-3)

3(0)=0 (correct)

x(x-3)

4(4-3)

4(1)=4 (double what it should be)

Try multiplying by 1/2

x(x-3)1/2

4(4-3)1/2

4(1)1/2

4 x 1/2= 2 (correct)

x(x-3)1/2

5(5-3)1/2

5(2)1/2

10 x 1/2= 5 (correct)

x(x-3)1/2

6(6-3)1/2

6(3)1/2

18 x 1/2= 9 (correct)

FORMULA IS:

x(x-3)
2

x= the input