Is a Circle a Polygon or Not? Implications for Calculus
[caption id="attachment_16285" align="alignright" width="380"] A 12-sided dodecagon.[/caption] What do you think? Is the circle a polygon, or not? As a result of watching a child’s video, I previously wrote a brief piece about the “corners” of a circle. The video was designed to teach children the various shapes—how many sides does a shape have, and how many corners? The video maintained a circle has no corners. I called that into question. I still do. And yet, I do not. I now think it’s all in how you look at it. Or, you might say, it’s all in the mathematical perspective. Consider. The Circle by Definition One can define the two-dimensional circle as the complete collection or “set” of points equidistant from a set point, not part of the circle. In…