Where Do "Star of David" Triangles Intersect?

Rowls

New member
Joined
Feb 4, 2019
Messages
1
I have two equilateral triangles of different sizes. I lay them one on top of the other to create a Star of David but want to know where the triangles will intersect?

Essentially, as long as I have uploaded my picture correctly, I need to find a formula for finding X in the picture below.

2mhg76o.png
 
I have two equilateral triangles of different sizes. I lay them one on top of the other to create a Star of David but want to know where the triangles will intersect?

Essentially, as long as I have uploaded my picture correctly, I need to find a formula for finding X in the picture below.

2mhg76o.png
2mhg76o.png

That will depend on "how" you lay the "smaller" triangle on top of the bigger triangle.

You may have the bases of the triangles parallel to each other (as shown in the figure) - or not.

You may have two vertices of the smaller triangle just "beyond" the sides of the red triangle - or NOT.

Please be more specific with your question!!
 
Perhaps I'm confused here and/or being too pedantic, but I don't see how you can form a Star of David with two differently sized triangles. The "Star of David" is just another name for a hexagram, which is defined as the star polygon {6/2}. This, in turn, requires the six points used to form the hexagram to be evenly spaced around a circle, which is equivalent to a triangle connecting the 1st, 3rd, and 5th vertices of a regular hexagon and another triangle connecting the 2nd, 4th, and 6th vertices. So, by definition, the two triangles used to create a Star of David must both be equilateral, but more specifically, they must be the same size.

As a consequence of all of this, we can use many known properties of circles and hexagons to make the desired information basically fall out. Suppose we began with a circle of radius r and formed the Star of David by connecting the appropriate equally spaced points. Then, each side the triangles must have length \(\displaystyle r \sqrt{3}\). Furthermore, each of the sides of the triangles are subdivided into three "segments" of equal length. Thus, for the purposes of your problem, you would have \(\displaystyle x = \dfrac{r \sqrt{3}}{3}\), where you can supply the appropriate value of r.

If you're interested, the fact that the length of the sides of the triangle is \(\displaystyle r \sqrt{3}\) can be proven by plugging in two points on the hexagon and cranking it through the distance formula:

\(\displaystyle \sqrt{\left[ r \sin \left( \dfrac{(k+2) \pi}{3} \right ) - r \sin \left( \dfrac{k \pi}{3} \right ) \right]^2 + \left[ r \cos \left( \dfrac{(k+2) \pi}{3} \right ) - r \cos \left( \dfrac{k \pi}{3} \right ) \right]^2}\)

This will involve a lot of trigonometry and algebra, and will likely get messy in places, but if done correctly will lead to the desired result.
 
Top