Parallelogram Dissection Paradox

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This Demonstration shows a dissection paradox. On one hand, the area of the parallelogram is , and on the other hand, the area of the rectangle is . An explanation is in the Details section.

Contributed by: Izidor Hafner (October 2012)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


Snapshots


Details

The red and blue diagonals and the green and brown diagonals are not parallel, so the figure is not a parallelogram. The slopes of the diagonals are and with a difference of , which is almost imperceptible.



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