K is for . . .

I'm posting Mad-Cool-Math nuggets this month.



Image courtesy: Seb Ruiz

K is for kite.

I know, that doesn't sound particularly mathy, does it? As you go through the A to Z challenge, there will come a letter that will stump you, especially if you have a theme. In math, there are letters for which the topics are bare to nonexistent, and the worst is K. (Second worst? J)  I don't know why, but there's a dearth of madly cool math topics starting with K, or ones which I dare to tackle for a general audience.

So what I have for you is a mathy definition of a kite: a quadrilateral with two pairs of adjacent, congruent sides. Hey, at least the picture's nice.

Quadrilateral: four-sided polygon with four angles, you know, like a square or rectangle.

Adjacent: Here that means touching. Notice how the two shorter sides touch each other at the top corner and the two longer sides touch each other at the bottom corner.

Congruent: identical in form. In the kite above, the top two, shorter sides are equal in length, as are the lower, longer two sides.

What letter has or is going to be difficult for you this month? Q? Z? Ever fly a kite?

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This week, I'm offering another free short story to download called The President and the Pea.

Sixty-something Annette Hutchins has her quirks. She abhors eggs and never drinks anything red. But those oddities pale in comparison to the secret she's been forced to keep for years. Annette witnessed the assassination of the President of the United States. Or did she? Approx. 35 pages (8,800 words)