Sum of Interior Angles of An N
Sum of Interior Angles of An N
Sum of Interior Angles of An N
There are many methods to find the sum of the interior angles of an n-sided convex
polygon. Most books discuss only one or two ways.
Method 1
Method 2
Fro
m any point P on the line segment, say
A1 A2, construct lines to the vertices A3, A4,
…, An.
Method 3
Method 4
You carry on with the journey and turn all exterior angles.
Lastly you come back to point A1 and face A2 again.
You can see that, by considering the red and blue angles in the diagram, the sum of
any one of the interior angle and the adjacent exterior angle is 180. (adjacent angle on
straight line)
………
One observation about the exterior angles is that their angle sum is always . For instance, in the pentagon, the sum of the
interior angles is . The next question is, is this observation always true? Is this always true for all polygons, even non-
regular ones? Try a few more examples by drawing or by using a geometry software.
Scratch Work
First we note that the measure of the exterior angle is
Second, the sum of the interior angles of a polygon is . Let us say, if and are measures of the angles of a 3-sided
polygon (a triangle), then . Similarly, if we have a quadrilateral,
. In general, if we have a polygon with sides, the equation
We will use these notations and equations so we can prove the theorems later, but before that…
Don’t Panic!
The previous equation only shows the sum of all the interior angles of a polygon with sides. The 3-dot symbol is used
to indicate that there are terms in between that were not written. The 3-dot symbol is used to shorten the equation. For
instance, if we write , we mean the sum of all the positive integers from to .
Theorem
The sum of the exterior angles of a polygon is .
Proof
We add all the exterior angles of a polygon with sides. From above, we have learned that the angle measure of a regular polygon is
180 minus the measure of its adjacent interior angle. Therefore, the exterior angle sum of a polygon is
.
Regrouping we have
Simplifying, we have .
Using the method above, we can see the pattern on the table below. The sum of a polygon with sides is degrees. Next, we
summarize the polygon angle sum theorem and prove it.
Theorem
The angle sum of a polygon with sides is 180(n-2) degrees.
Proof
A polygon with sides can be divided into triangles. Since the angle sum of a triangle is , the angle sum of a polygon
is .