Abstract
After the undeniably hard work of the last two chapters, we reward ourselves with a “lollipop” by returning to the theme of constructions using ruler and compasses. The fact (to be established below) that a 17-sided regular polygon is constructible, whereas a 19-sided regular polygon is not, is of little practical significance, but the argument is beautiful, and, to the soul of a pure mathematician, is its own justification. Even the fact that a 65, 537-sided polygon is constructible is intriguing!
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© 2006 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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(2006). Regular Polygons. In: Fields and Galois Theory. Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-181-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-181-5_11
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-986-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-84628-181-5
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