A Panoply of Polygons

A Panoply of Polygons presents and organizes hundreds of beautiful, surprising and intriguing results about polygons with more than four sides. (A Cornucopia of Quadrilaterals, a previous volume by the same authors, thoroughly explored the properties of four-sided polygons.) This panoply consists of eight chapters, one dedicated to polygonal basics, the next ones dedicated to pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, octagons and many-sided polygons. Then miscellaneous classes of polygons are explored (e.g., lattice, rectilinear, zonogons, cyclic, tangential) and the final chapter presents polygonal numbers (figurate numbers based on polygons). Applications, real-life examples, and uses in art and architecture complement the presentation where many proofs with a visual nature are included.

A Panoply of Polygons can be used as a supplement to a high school or college geometry course. It can also be used as a source for group projects or extra-credit assignments. It will appeal, and be accessible to, anyone with an interest in plane geometry. Claudi Alsina and Roger Nelsen are, jointly and individually, the authors of thirteen previous MAA/AMS books. Those books, and this one, celebrate and illuminate the power of visualization in learning, teaching, and creating mathematics.