TOPICS
Search

Compass


A tool with two arms joined at their ends which can be used to draw circles. In geometric constructions, the classical Greek rules stipulate that the compass cannot be used to mark off distances, so it must "collapse" whenever one of its arms is removed from the page. This results in significant complication in the complexity of geometric constructions.


See also

Constructible Polygon, Euclidean Tools, Geometric Construction, Geometrography, Mascheroni Construction, Plane Geometry, Polygon, Poncelet-Steiner Theorem, Ruler, Simplicity, Steiner Construction, Straightedge

Explore with Wolfram|Alpha

References

Dixon, R. "Compass Drawings." Ch. 1 in Mathographics. New York: Dover, pp. 1-78, 1991.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha

Compass

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Compass." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Compass.html

Subject classifications