Corner of a 2 meter square is cut off to form a regular octagon. Determine the length of the resulting side of the octagon?
Answer is 0.828
I need help visualizing this; if you cut off a corner of a 2m square; then shouldn't all the sides of the octagon be 2m?
Best Answer
The question makes sense only if you cut off all four corners of the square to make an octagon, as in the diagram.
To solve the problem, note that if the side of the octagon is $x$ then the side of the square is
$$\frac{\sqrt 2}{2}x+x+\frac{\sqrt 2}{2}x$$
Set that equal to $2$ and solve for $x$.