Similarity (geometry)

Two geometrical objects are called similar if they both have the same shape.
More precisely, one is congruent to the result of a uniform scaling of the other.
Corresponding sides of similar polygons are in proportion, and corresponding
angles of similar polygons have the same measure. One can be obtained from the
other by uniformly "stretching" the same amount on all directions, possibly with
additional rotation and reflection, i.e., both have the same shape, or one has the
same shape as the mirror image of the other. If two angles of a triangle have
measures equal to the measures of two angles of another triangle, then the
triangles are similar.This article assumes that a scaling, enlargement or stretch
can have a scale factor of 1, so that all congruent shapes are also similar, but
some school text books specifically exclude congruent triangles from their
definition of similar triangles by insisting that the sizes must be different to
qualify as similar.

Similar triangles
In order to understand the concept of similarity of triangles, one must think of two
different concepts. On the one hand there is the concept of shape and on the other
hand there is the concept of scale.

In particular, similar triangles are triangles that have the same shape and are up to
scale of one another. For a triangle, the shape is determined by its angles, so the
statement that two triangles have the same shape simply means that there is a
correspondence between angles that preserve their measures.

Formally speaking, we say that two triangles and are similar if

either of the following conditions holds:

1. Corresponding sides have lengths in the same ratio:

i.e. . This is equivalent to saying that one triangle is an

enlargement of the other.

2. is equal in measure to , and is equal in measure to

. This also implies that is equal in measure to .

When two triangles and are similar, we write

The 'is similar to' symbol can also be expressed as three vertical lines: lll
This idea extends to similar polygons with more sides. Given any two similar
polygons, corresponding sides are proportional. However, proportionality of
corresponding sides is not sufficient to prove similarity for polygons beyond
triangles (otherwise, for example, all rhombi would be similar). Corresponding
angles must also be equal in measure.

Angle/side similarities

The following three criteria are sufficient to prove that a pair of triangles are
similar. In summary, they state that if triangles have the same shape then they are
to scale (AA criterion), and that if they are to scale then they have the same shape
(SSS). Another extra criterion, SAS, will also be explained below.

• AA: if two triangles have two corresponding pairs of angles with the same
measure then they are similar. Sometimes this criterion is also referred to as
AAA because two angles of equal measure implies equality of the third. This
criterion means that if a triangle is copied to preserve the shape, then the
copy is "to scale.

• SSS: If the ratio of corresponding sides of two triangles does not depend on
the sides chosen, then the triangles are similar. This means that if any
triangle copied to scale is also copied in shape.

• SAS: if two sides are taken in a triangle, that are proportional to two
corresponding sides in another triangle, and the angles included between
these sides have the same measure, then the triangles are similar. This means
that in order to enlarge a triangle, it is sufficient to copy one angle, and to
scale just the two sides that form the angle.

Similarity in Euclidean space

One of the meanings of the terms similarity and similarity transformation (also
called dilation) of a Euclidean space is a function f from the space into itself that
multiplies all distances by the same positive scalar r, so that for any two points x
and y we have

where "d(x,y)" is the Euclidean distance from x to y. Two sets are called similar if
one is the image of the other under such a similarity.

A special case is a homothetic transformation or central similarity: it neither

involves rotation nor taking the mirror image. A similarity is a composition of a
homothety and an isometry. Therefore, in general Euclidean spaces every similarity
is an affine transformation, because the Euclidean group E(n) is a subgroup of the
affine group.