Langley’s Adventitious Angles the first of the three unsolved problems listed by Rigby in his 1978 paper. Langley’s Adventitious Angles Langley’s Adventitious Angles is a mathematical problem posed by Edward Mann Langley in "The Mathematical Gazette" in 1922. In its original form the problem was as follows: formula_1 is an isosceles triangle. A solution was developed by James Mercer in 1923. This solution involves drawing one additional line, and then making repeated use of the fact that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180° to prove that several triangles drawn within the large triangle are all isosceles. Many other solutions
Triangle inequality angles satisfy: Therefore, and so, in particular, That means side opposite angle is shorter than side opposite the larger angle . But . Hence: A similar construction shows , establishing the theorem. An alternative proof (also based upon the triangle postulate) proceeds by considering three positions for point : (i) as depicted (which is to be proven), or (ii) coincident with (which would mean the isosceles triangle had two right angles as base angles plus the vertex angle , which would violate the triangle postulate), or lastly, (iii) interior to the right triangle between points and (in which case angle