Swing-hinged dissection of triangle to pentagon

Put the mouse cursor inside the box below to activate the movement.

Double click the figure to stop and start the animation. You can hold the RIGHT mouse button down and drag it HORIZONTALLY across the figure to sequence through the frames of the animation.

Look at Greg Frederickson's website for more swinging stuff, plus a few twists.
See Ivars Peterson's MathTrek column, "Chemical Dissections", at MAA Online, for a link to the real world.


This hinged dissection, due to Greg Frederickson, was brought to life by David Gunderson. The version on this page was created by Rick Mabry from scratch using only Gunderson's model as a guide. Mathematica was used (with some coaxing) to solve systems of equations that produce the exact dimensions of the polygons. The results were converted to the live animation seen on the present web page using the fabulous LiveGraphics3D applet of Martin Kraus.


(Version).


Rick Mabry's home page