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Equivalently, an inscribed angle is defined by two chords of the circle sharing an endpoint. The inscribed angle theorem relates the measure of an inscribed angle to that of the central angle intercepting the same arc. The inscribed angle theorem appears as Proposition 20 in Book 3 of Euclid's Elements.
Angle AOB is a central angle. A central angle is an angle whose apex (vertex) is the center O of a circle and whose legs (sides) are radii intersecting the circle in two distinct points A and B. Central angles are subtended by an arc between those two points, and the arc length is the central angle of a circle of radius one (measured in radians). [1]
The angle θ is taken in the positive sense and must lie in the interval 0 < θ ≤ π (radian measure). The chord function can be related to the modern sine function, by taking one of the points to be (1,0), and the other point to be (cos θ, sin θ), and then using the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the chord length: [2]
For tiny arcs, the chord is to the arc angle in degrees as π is to 3, or more precisely, the ratio can be made as close as desired to π / 3 ≈ 1.047 197 55 by making θ small enough. Thus, for the arc of 1 / 2 °, the chord length is slightly more than the arc angle in degrees. As the arc increases, the ratio of the chord to ...
An inscribed angle (examples are the blue and green angles in the figure) is exactly half the corresponding central angle (red). Hence, all inscribed angles that subtend the same arc (pink) are equal. Angles inscribed on the arc (brown) are supplementary. In particular, every inscribed angle that subtends a diameter is a right angle (since the ...
What can be stated is that as the central angle gets smaller (or alternately the radius gets larger), the area a rapidly and asymptotically approaches . If θ ≪ 1 {\displaystyle \theta \ll 1} , a = 2 3 c ⋅ h {\displaystyle a={\tfrac {2}{3}}c\cdot h} is a substantially good approximation.
As stated above, Thales's theorem is a special case of the inscribed angle theorem (the proof of which is quite similar to the first proof of Thales's theorem given above): Given three points A, B and C on a circle with center O, the angle ∠ AOC is twice as large as the angle ∠ ABC. A related result to Thales's theorem is the following:
Ptolemy's Theorem yields as a corollary a pretty theorem [2] regarding an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. Given An equilateral triangle inscribed on a circle and a point on the circle. The distance from the point to the most distant vertex of the triangle is the sum of the distances from the point to the two nearer vertices.