July 11, 2010

Hexagon Spire

Looking up can present you with remarkable geometric vistas in a variety of settings. One of my most vivid memories is of the interior of a spire that consisted of a sequence of stacked, rotated hexagons of diminishing size, producing a convincing illusion of infinite extent.




The spectacular, soaring spire of the Man in the Community pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal consisted of a sequence of nested hexagons (video tour of pavilion).


The sequence of inscribed hexagons suggests a variety of math problems. What is the ratio of the areas of the circumscribed regular hexagon to the inscribed regular hexagon? Solution.




Photo by I. Peterson

2 comments:

Adriana said...

your posts make my days more beautiful :) thanks!

Pacha Nambi said...

My friend Jayaraman Narayanan says: "the answer can be given for regular polygon of any number of sides".