Square

Characterizations

A convex quadrilateral is a square if and only if it is any one of the following:

Properties

A square is a special case of a rhombus (equal sides, opposite equal angles), a kite (two pairs of adjacent equal sides), a parallelogram (opposite sides parallel), a quadrilateral or tetragon (four-sided polygon), and a rectangle (opposite sides equal, right-angles) and therefore has all the properties of all these shapes, namely:

Perimeter and area

The perimeter of a square whose four sides have length ℓ is

and the area A is

In classical times, the second power was described in terms of the area of a square, as in the above formula. This led to the use of the term square to mean raising to the second power.

The area can also be calculated using the diagonal d according to

In terms of the circumradius R, the area of a square is

since the area of the circle is π R 2 , the square fills approximately 0.6366 of its circumscribed circle.

In terms of the inradius r, the area of the square is

Because it is a regular polygon, a square is the quadrilateral of least perimeter enclosing a given area. Dually, a square is the quadrilateral containing the largest area within a given perimeter. Indeed, if A and P are the area and perimeter enclosed by a quadrilateral, then the following isoperimetric inequality holds:

with equality if and only if the quadrilateral is a square.

Other facts

Coordinates and equations

The coordinates for the vertices of a square with vertical and horizontal sides, centered at the origin and with side length 2 are (±1, ±1), while the interior of this square consists of all points (x_i, y_i) with −1 < x_i < 1 and −1 < y_i < 1. The equation

specifies the boundary of this square. This equation means "x² or y², whichever is larger, equals 1." The circumradius of this square (the radius of a circle drawn through the square's vertices) is half the square's diagonal, and equals 2 . Then the circumcircle has the equation

Alternatively the equation

can also be used to describe the boundary of a square with center coordinates (a, b) and a horizontal or vertical radius of r.

Construction

The following animations show how to construct a square using a compass and straightedge. This is possible as 4 = 2², a power of two.

Symmetry

The square has Dih₄ symmetry, order 8. There are 2 dihedral subgroups: Dih₂, Dih₁, and 3 cyclic subgroups: Z₄, Z₂, and Z₁.

A square is a special case of many lower symmetry quadrilaterals:

These 6 symmetries express 8 distinct symmetries on a square. John Conway labels these by a letter and group order.

Each subgroup symmetry allows one or more degrees of freedom for irregular quadrilaterals. r8 is full symmetry of the square, and a1 is no symmetry. d4, is the symmetry of a rectangle and p4, is the symmetry of a rhombus. These two forms are duals of each other and have half the symmetry order of the square. d2 is the symmetry of an isosceles trapezoid, and p2 is the symmetry of a kite. g2 defines the geometry of a parallelogram.

Only the g4 subgroup has no degrees of freedom but can seen as a square with directed edges.

Squares inscribed in triangles

Every acute triangle has three inscribed squares (squares in its interior such that all four of a square's vertices lie on a side of the triangle, so two of them lie on the same side and hence one side of the square coincides with part of a side of the triangle). In a right triangle two of the squares coincide and have a vertex at the triangle's right angle, so a right triangle has only two distinct inscribed squares. An obtuse triangle has only one inscribed square, with a side coinciding with part of the triangle's longest side.

The fraction of the triangle's area that is filled by the square is no more than 1/2.

Squaring the circle

Squaring the circle is the problem, proposed by ancient geometers, of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge.

In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (π) is a transcendental number, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients.

Non-Euclidean geometry

In non-Euclidean geometry, squares are more generally polygons with 4 equal sides and equal angles.

In spherical geometry, a square is a polygon whose edges are great circle arcs of equal distance, which meet at equal angles. Unlike the square of plane geometry, the angles of such a square are larger than a right angle. Larger spherical squares have larger angles.

In hyperbolic geometry, squares with right angles do not exist. Rather, squares in hyperbolic geometry have angles of less than right angles. Larger hyperbolic squares have smaller angles.

Examples:

Crossed square

A crossed square is a faceting of the square, a self-intersecting polygon created by removing two opposite edges of a square and reconnecting by its two diagonals. It has half the symmetry of the square, Dih₂, order 4. It has the same vertex arrangement as the square, and is vertex-transitive. It appears as two 45-45-90 triangle with a common vertex, but the geometric intersection is not considered a vertex.

A crossed square is sometimes likened to a bow tie or butterfly. the crossed rectangle is related, as a faceting of the rectangle, both special cases of crossed quadrilaterals.

The interior of a crossed square can have a polygon density of ±1 in each triangle, dependent upon the winding orientation as clockwise or counterclockwise.

A square and a crossed square have the following properties in common:

It exists in the vertex figure of a uniform star polyhedra, the tetrahemihexahedron.

Graphs

The K₄ complete graph is often drawn as a square with all 6 possible edges connected, hence appearing as a square with both diagonals drawn. This graph also represents an orthographic projection of the 4 vertices and 6 edges of the regular 3-simplex (tetrahedron).