SIMILAR POLYGONS

Do you remember we studied about congruent figures in 8th or 9th class?? Well that was fun! Let us summarize the same and then study further something on that.

Two geometric figures having the same shape and size are known as congruent figures. Which may have congruent triangles, congruent Polygons and so on..

To go further today we will see what is meant by Similar figures.

Geometric figures having the same shape but different sizes are known as Similar Figures.

Important Note: Two Congruent figures are always similar but similar figures need not be congruent.

Similar Polygons:- Two polygons are said to be similar to each other, if:

(i) their corresponding angles are equal, and

(ii) the lengths of their corresponding sides are proportional.

For example:- If Polygon ABCDE and PQRST are similar then from the above definition it follows that:

angle at A = angle at P, angle at B = angle at Q, angle at C = angle at R, angle at D = angle at S, angle at E = angle at T.

and AB/PQ = BC/QR = CD/RS = DE/ST

And this similarity can be written as ABCDE ~ PQRST, where the symbol “~” stands for “similar to”