Star polygons in art and culture Star polygons in art and culture Star polygons and polygonal compounds are the basis for numerous figures of significance in arts and culture. The figure may be the border or interior of the polygon, or one or more closed polygonal paths that include all of the border and also have some legs crossing the interior. Impressions of astronomical stars provide the term, but specific uses may exploit the connection or not. Stars often represent the unity of states within a country when they are used as a part of the flag. The five-pointed star, if drawn with points of equal
Similarity (geometry) G.D. Birkhoff (see Birkhoff's axioms) the SAS similarity criterion given above was used to replace both Euclid's Parallel Postulate and the SAS axiom which enabled the dramatic shortening of Hilbert's axioms. Similar triangles provide the basis for many synthetic (without the use of coordinates) proofs in Euclidean geometry. Among the elementary results that can be proved this way are: the angle bisector theorem, the geometric mean theorem, Ceva's theorem, Menelaus's theorem and the Pythagorean theorem. Similar triangles also provide the foundations for right triangle trigonometry. The concept of similarity extends to polygons with more than three sides. Given any two