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30 Similar Shapes
30 Similar Shapes
Two shapes are Similar when the only difference is size (and possibly the need to move,
turn or flip one around).
Rotation
Turn!
Reflection
Flip!
Translation
Slide!
Examples
These pairs of shapes are all Similar:
Resized
Why is it Useful?
When two shapes are similar, then:
This can make life a lot easier when solving geometry puzzles, as in this example:
Notice that the red triangle has the same angles as the main triangle ...
... they both have one right angle, and a shared angle in the left corner
In fact you could flip the red triangle over, rotate it a little, then resize it and it would fit
exactly on top of the main triangle. So they are similar triangles.
So the line lengths will be in proportion, and we can calculate:
? = 80 (130/127) = 81.9
(No fancy calculations, just common sense!)
Congruent or Similar?
Shapes are Congruent when they are the same size (but may have been rotated, reflected
or moved). So when the shapes become the same:
When we ...
... only Rotate, Reflect and/or Translate
Congruent
... also need to Resize
Similar
Example:
We can move and rotate the orange shape to exactly match the blue shape, so the two
shapes are Congruent.
We don't have to resize for the shapes to be similar! So they are also Similar even though
no resizing was needed.