Problem 10924

(American Mathematical Monthly, Vol.109, February 2002)

Proposed by A. J. Sasane, University of Groningen, The Nederlands.
A regular polygon of 2001 sides is inscribed in a circle of unit radius. Prove that
its side and all its diagonals have irrational lengths.
Solution proposed by Roberto Tauraso, Dipartimento di Matematica, Universit`a
di Roma Tor Vergata, via della Ricerca Scientifica, 00133 Roma, Italy.
We will prove a more general statement:
In a regular polygon of N 2 sides and inscribed in a circle of unit radius, the
side and all the diagonals have irrational lengths iff N is an odd integer.
First recall that for all integers n 1 and for all R
n  
X
n k
n
cos n + i sin n = (cos + i sin ) =
i (sin )k (cos )nk .
k
k=0

After taking the imaginery part, we have

 
n
X
k1
n
sin n =
(1) 2 (sin )k (cos )nk .
k
k=1, k odd

If n is odd then the exponents nk are even and

(cos )nk = (cos2 )

nk
2

= (1 sin2 )

nk
2

Hence, for all odd integers n 1, there is a polynomial Qn (x) Z[x] of degree
n 1, of the following form

 
n1
n
1+
xn1 + . . . + n,
Qn (x) = (1) 2
2
such that
sin n = sin Qn (sin )

for all odd integers n 1.

(1)

After this key remark, we start the proof of our statement.

If N is even then the diagonal between two opposite vertices has length 2 Q.
On the other hand, if N is odd then the side and the diagonals have lengths:
2 sin(m/N ) for m = 1, . . . , N 1. Assume that one of these numbers is rational,
then we will reach a contradiction.
Since 1 m N 1, there are an odd prime p and some integer e 1 such
that pe divides N , pe1 divides m, but pe does not divide m. Therefore N/pe
is an odd integer and by (1)




 m
  m 
m0
N m
sin
= sin e
= sin
Q Ne sin
Q
p
p
p
N
N
N
1

where m0 = m/pe1 . Since MCD(m0 , p) = 1, if k Z then there are two integers

s0 and t0 such that s = s0 + j p and t = t0 j m0 solve the following linear
diophantine equation for all j Z:
s m0 + t p = k.
We can always pick j such that s is an odd positive integer. Then, by (1)






 

k
(s m0 + t p)
m0
m0
sin
= sin
= (1)t sin
Qs sin
Q.
p
p
p
p
Varying k = 1, . . . , p1
2 , we obtain p 1 distinct rational numbers which are
the zeroes of the polynomial

 
p1
p
Qp (x) = (1) 2
1+
xp1 + . . . + p.
2
The polynomial Qp has integer coefficients and therefore every rational zero
has the following property: the numerator divides p whereas the denominator
divides a = 1 + p(p 1)/2. It follows that




 
k
p1
1 p
: k = 1, . . . ,
T = , : d | a (1, 1).
S = sin
p
2
d d
Hence

cos

2p



1
(p 1)
p

=1
,
= sin
= max S max T
p
2
p+1
p+1

and therefore
 
 
 2
1

2
2
1 cos
= 2 sin
<2
< 2.
p+1
2p
4p
4p
p
This inequality never holds for p 3 which is a contradiction. 
Note that, if N = 2001 = 3 23 29 then we can get a contradiction in a different
way:
1
1
23
23
if p = 23 then a = 254 = 2 127 and T = { 12 , 127
, 254
127
, 254
},
1
1
1
29
29
if p = 29 then a = 407 = 11 37 and T = { 11 , 37 , 407 , 37 , 407 }.

In both cases the number of elements of T is much

less than p1. The remaining
case p = 3 is easily solved because sin(/3) = 3/2 6 Q.