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jmc

geometry intermediate

Problem

The figure shows a square in the interior of a regular hexagon. The square and regular hexagon share a common side. What is the degree measure of ?
problem
Solution
Label the lower right corner of the square point and the lower left corner . The interior angles of a regular hexagon are 120 degrees and the interior angles of a square are 90 degrees. Thus, . In addition, because the square and regular hexagon share a side and all of their sides have the same length, segments and have the same length. Thus, triangle is isosceles.

Because the base angles of an isosceles triangle are congruent, . In addition, because the interior angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees, we have Thus, . Finally, we calculate .
Final answer
45