Talk:Heptadecagon

Correct nomenclature?

John Conway (no crank or nut) insists "heptadecagon" is wrong and should be called "Heptakaidecagon", anyone know about this?

• I don't, but I think that it's fine how it is, as it seems to me that -kai- adds length without adding clarity. Jonathan48 21:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• If we favor heptadecagon over the kai version, shouldn't the triskaidecagon worry?
  —Herbee 23:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Construction animation

There are links on this article to a Korean heptadecagon construction animation, which is good besides being unable to read it. But I'm wondering, since Wikipedia should be a repository of knowledge and not a collection of links to other places with that knowledge, should I post a heptadecagon construction animation as I have for other polygons? I'm hesitant because it'd be messy and about 360KB. Jonathan48 21:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be a really good thing to do. I like what you put in dodecagon. The size of the image doesn't matter: many photos are larger than this (and less interesting!). Even if it is "messy", I think it would be entertaining! Thincat 12:53, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

For better or worse, I've posted it. I'm hoping that everyone doesn't think "messy" was an understatement. :) Jonathan48 02:46, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Too many decimals

I wonder who had the idea of writing ".... 158.823529411765 degrees" on one of the first lines of the article... Of course this is not exact, and at least half of the digits are completely useless. Why not write 2700/17 = 158 \frac{14}{17} \approx 158.82 ? Or, say, "approximately 158.82" ? — MFH: Talk 22:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Done.--Patrick 00:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Too many radicals

Gauss must have known how to handle simplifications like

${\sqrt {34-2{\sqrt {17}}}}+2{\sqrt {34+2{\sqrt {17}}}}={\sqrt {170+38{\sqrt {17}}}}$

so why did he write that expression the way he did? What information would be lost or hidden by this simplification?
—Herbee 23:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

As the original version has smaller numbers, Gauss may have considered it simpler. It is usual to write

$2{\sqrt {2}}$ rather than ${\sqrt {8}}$. But why did he not ask the stonemason to inscribe a {17/4} star polygon on his tombstone? Bo Jacoby 12:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

Because the the stonemason would have been able to do that. Not nearly as funny as the (apocryphal?) original request. --88.66.10.176 (talk) 22:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Question marks

There are ??? in the description at the bottem —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.126.230.225 (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

And it repeats half of what is said in the top part, probably a copy/paste. Let's see if I clean it up some time.Balrog-kun (talk) 18:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Hate to break it to you guys

But the Fermat prime for n=5 is 4294967297 2^5 = 32 2^32 = 4294967296 4294967296 + 1 = 4294967297 and n=6: 2^6 = 64 2^64 = 18446744073709551616 18446744073709551616 + 1 = 18446744073709551617

So the statement that "only the Fermat primes for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4" is incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taktoa (talk • contribs) 21:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

2^2^5 + 1 = (2^7 × 5 + 1) × (2^7 × 3 × (2^3 × 3 × (2 × 3 × 11^2 + 1) + 1)

2^2^6 + 1 = (2^8 × 3^2 × 7 × 17 + 1) × 67280421310721

What's your point? —Tamfang (talk) 07:20, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

There are infinite Fermat numbers, but only 5 of them are demonstrated to be also prime numbers (just for n=0, 1, 2, 3 and 4). So the statement "only the Fermat primes for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4" is more or less a non-sense. --Aldoaldoz (talk) 20:13, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, the article doesn't contain that phrase, let alone such a "statement" (what's the verb?). It says "The only known Fermat primes are F_n for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4." Taktoa and Aldoaldoz seem to be reading that as "Fermat numbers exist only for 0≤n≤4," which it does not say. —Tamfang (talk) 04:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, only after editing here I noticed such phrase is not contained in the main article. Nevertheless, "The only known Fermat primes are F_n for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4." is correct, while "only the Fermat primes for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4" seems to say there are also other Fermat numbers that are prime. --Aldoaldoz (talk) 06:02, 3 April 2010 (UTC)