Constructing a quadrilateral

Quandaries and Queries

Name: Jayasri
Who is asking: Student
Level of the question: All

Question: Can we construct a unique quadrilateral with the following information:

The lenghts of all the sides of a quadrilateral are known.

The angle between one of the sides and the X-axis is known.

Hi Jayasri,

Try it with all sides equal to 1 and an angle of zero with the x-axis. In other words, take points A and B on the x-axis, and set your compass to the length AB. See what quadrilaterals you can construct.

Chris