Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) (07/10/89)
In article <1448@mdbs.UUCP>, mm@mdbs (Michael MacKenzie) writes: > > There exists a proof about the impossibility of trisecting an arbitrary > angle with compass & straight edge. This doesn't seem to stop anyone > who needs to cut a piece of pie into 3 parts. Then again, few people attempt to cut a piece of pie with straightedge and compasses, and few care that the angle be trisected. For those who do, though, I provide the following THEOREM. A pie O with radius OP can be trisected. Proof. Construct a circle of radius OP at P. The circle intersects pie O at two points; call them Q and R. Construct straight lines OQ and OR. It may be seen (by the proverbial astute reader :-) ) that thrice angle QOR is once angle POP. That theorem, incidentally, is from the lost fourteenth book of the _Elements_, which was recently discovered by Betty Crocker in her research in ancient Greek pastries. --Scott Scott Horne Hacker-in-Chief, Yale CS Dept Facility horne@cs.Yale.edu ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne Home: 203 789-0877 SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 Work: 203 432-6428 Summer residence: 175 Dwight St, New Haven, CT Dare I speak for the amorphous gallimaufry of intellectual thought called Yale?