Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Inscribed angle
Summary
In geometry, an inscribed angle is the angle formed in the interior of a circle when two chords intersect on the circle. It can also be defined as the angle subtended at a point on the circle by two given points on the circle.
Equivalently, an inscribed angle is defined by two chords of the circle sharing an endpoint.
The inscribed angle theorem relates the measure of an inscribed angle to that of the central angle subtending the same arc.
The inscribed angle theorem appears as Proposition 20 on Book 3 of Euclid's Elements.
The inscribed angle theorem states that an angle θ inscribed in a circle is half of the central angle 2θ that subtends the same arc on the circle. Therefore, the angle does not change as its vertex is moved to different positions on the circle.
Let O be the center of a circle, as in the diagram at right. Choose two points on the circle, and call them V and A. Draw line VO and extended past O so that it intersects the circle at point B which is diametrically opposite the point V. Draw an angle whose vertex is point V and whose sides pass through points A and B.
Draw line OA. Angle BOA is a central angle; call it θ. Lines OV and OA are both radii of the circle, so they have equal lengths. Therefore, triangle VOA is isosceles, so angle BVA (the inscribed angle) and angle VAO are equal; let each of them be denoted as ψ.
Angles BOA and AOV add up to 180°, since line VB passing through O is a straight line. Therefore, angle AOV measures 180° − θ.
It is known that the three angles of a triangle add up to 180°, and the three angles of triangle VOA are:
180° − θ
ψ
ψ.
Therefore,
Subtract
from both sides,
where θ is the central angle subtending arc AB and ψ is the inscribed angle subtending arc AB.
Given a circle whose center is point O, choose three points V, C, and D on the circle. Draw lines VC and VD: angle DVC is an inscribed angle. Now draw line VO and extend it past point O so that it intersects the circle at point E. Angle DVC subtends arc DC on the circle.
Suppose this arc includes point E within it.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.