Generating an octagon - Colegiul Național din Iași (Iași - Roumanie)

The problem studied in this article is the computation of the area of an octagon inside a square or parallelogram, constructed in its basic version as follows: the sides of the octagon are the 8 lines which join the corners of the quadrilateral with the middle of the (two) opposite sides. In this basic version, the area is shown to be one sixth of the area of the quadrilateral. A more advanced version is also worked out where the corners are joined to the near-quarter or some other ratio 1/n of the opposite sides. In this case they show that the area of the octagonal is (n-1)^2/n(n+1) the area of the quadrilateral. The regularity of the octagon is also studied. The proofs use only very classical theorems of geometry, such as the theorems of Thalès, Pythagoras, the sine rule and the theorem of similarity.