Centre (geometry)

Circle illustration with circumference (C) in black, diameter (D) in cyan, radius (R) in red, and centre or origin (O) in magenta.

In geometry, a centre (or center) (from Greek κέντρον) [1] of an object is a point in some sense in the middle of the object. According to the specific definition of center taken into consideration, an object might have no center. If geometry is regarded as the study of isometry groups then a centre is a fixed point of all the isometries which move the object onto itself.

Circles, spheres, and segments

The centre of a circle is the point equidistant from the points on the edge. Similarly the centre of a sphere is the point equidistant from the points on the surface, and the centre of a line segment is the midpoint of the two ends.

Symmetric objects

For objects with several symmetries, the centre of symmetry is the point left unchanged by the symmetric actions. So the centre of a square, rectangle, rhombus or parallelogram is where the diagonals intersect, this being (amongst other properties) the fixed point of rotational symmetries. Similarly the centre of an ellipse or a hyperbola is where the axes intersect.

Triangles

Main article: Triangle centre

Several special points of a triangle are often described as triangle centres:

For an equilateral triangle, these are the same point, which lies at the intersection of the three axes of symmetry of the triangle, one third of the distance from its base to its apex.

A strict definition of a triangle centre is a point whose trilinear coordinates are f(a,b,c) : f(b,c,a) : f(c,a,b) where f is a function of the lengths of the three sides of the triangle, a, b, c such that:

  1. f is homogeneous in a, b, c i.e. f(ta,tb,tc)=thf(a,b,c) for some real power h; thus the position of a centre is independent of scale.
  2. f is symmetric in its last two arguments i.e. f(a,b,c)= f(a,c,b); thus position of a centre in a mirror-image triangle is the mirror-image of its position in the original triangle.[2]

This strict definition excludes pairs of bicentric points such as the Brocard points (which are interchanged by a mirror-image reflection). The Encyclopedia of Triangle Centers lists over 3,000 different triangle centres.

Tangential polygons and cyclic polygons

A tangential polygon has each of its sides tangent to a particular circle, called the incircle or inscribed circle. The centre of the incircle, called the incentre, can be considered a centre of the polygon.

A cyclic polygon has each of its vertices on a particular circle, called the circumcircle or circumscribed circle. The centre of the circumcircle, called the circumcentre, can be considered a centre of the polygon.

If a polygon is both tangential and cyclic, it is called bicentric. (All triangles are bicentric, for example.) The incentre and circumcentre of a bicentric polygon are not in general the same point.

General polygons

The centre of a general polygon can be defined in several different ways. The "vertex centroid" comes from considering the polygon as being empty but having equal masses at its vertices. The "side centroid" comes from considering the sides to have constant mass per unit length. The usual centre, called just the centroid (centre of area) comes from considering the surface of the polygon as having constant density. These three points are in general not all the same point.

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, March 19, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.