On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 18:17:56 -0700, Burt
wrote:


I can't remember the formula for the life of me.
If a dish is almost 3 ft across and I want to segment it like an orange into 10
segments how do I calculate how wide each will be at the rim?
So I end up with a dish that has 10 sides.

I'm math clueless.

You've received a lot of replies to sort through. Personally, if i had
your apparent background in math, I'd go for using a CAD program
[recommend DeltaCad as good and very intuitive]. However, it never
hurts to know how and why: Here's one mo

The general formula for the chord length, or side of the polygon, is C
= D*sin(180/N) [angle in degrees] where D is the diameter, and N is
the number of sides.

For N = 10, D = 72", you have C = 72*sin(18)

On the calculator use the following order of keypress:

18
sin
x
72
=

Ans: 22.249...

Now subtract 22

-
22
=

Now change the decimal to 16ths

x
16
=
Ans: 3.98...

That is, about 4-16ths, or 1/4"

So .... 22 1/4", near as dammit is to swearing.