Area of a circle Archimedes is not rigorous by modern standards, because it assumes that we can compare the length of arc of a circle to the length of a secant and a tangent line, and similar statements about the area, as geometrically evident. The area of a regular polygon is half its perimeter times the apothem. As the number of sides of the regular polygon increases, the polygon tends to a circle, and the apothem tends to the radius. This suggests that the area of a disk is half the circumference of its bounding circle times the radius. Following Archimedes' argument in "The
Distance from a point to a line a side, and "h" is the perpendicular height from the opposite vertex. This proof is only valid if the line is neither vertical nor horizontal, that is, we assume that neither "a" nor "b" in the equation of the line is zero. The line with equation "ax" + "by" + "c" = 0 has slope -"a"/"b", so any line perpendicular to it will have slope "b"/"a" (the negative reciprocal). Let ("m", "n") be the point of intersection of the line "ax" + "by" + "c" = 0 and the line perpendicular to it which passes through the point ("x", "y").