Friday, 29 November 2013

mg.metric geometry - Dividing a square into 5 equal squares

The Wallace-Bolyai-Gerwien Theorem theorem says:



Any two simple polygons of equal area are equidecomposable



(where simple means no self intersections and equidecomposable means finitely cut and glued).



For your problem you can take the first polygon to be a unit square and the second to be a sqrt(5) by 1/sqrt(5) rectangle and apply this theorem. Then perform the remaining four cuts.



Also, the generalisation of your question is the 2d analogue of Hilbert's 3rd Problem which asks whether given any two polyhedra with equal volume can one be finitely cut and glued into the other. The answer here, unlike in the 2d case, is "no" which was proved by Dehn using Dehn invariants in 1900.

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