Langley’s Adventitious Angles 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 are possible. Cut the Knot list twelve different solutions and several alternative problems with
Special right triangle : , which follows immediately from the Pythagorean theorem. Of all right triangles, the 45°–45°–90° degree triangle has the smallest ratio of the hypotenuse to the sum of the legs, namely . Of all right triangles, the 45°–45°–90° degree triangle has the greatest ratio of the altitude from the hypotenuse to the sum of the legs, namely . Triangles with these angles are the only possible right triangles that are also isosceles triangles in Euclidean geometry. However, in spherical geometry and hyperbolic geometry, there are infinitely many different shapes of right isosceles triangles. This is a triangle whose three angles