• Question: How many sides does a circle have?

    Asked by millerbei to Asif, Laura, Lena, Sean, Viv on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      A circle has an infinite number of sides, which means that it has an infinite number of courners as well. If you take one section of the circle, it will look curved. But as you zoom in, it will look less curved, and eventually you will have linearity. That is where the sides come from. As proof, look at a decagon (10 sides). It is starting to look round. As you add more and more sides to a polygon, it starts to look more and more like a circle. If you had a polygon with 1000 sides, would you be able to distinguish the different sides?

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