I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this one:
You start from a given set point, and walk one mile in a straight line, then turn 60 degrees to the left. You then walk another mile in a straight line, and then turn 60 degrees to the left. Finally, you walk another mile, and finish with a 60 degree turn to the left. You are now back at your start point, facing the way you started. Then angles add up to a triangle, 180 degrees. But hasn’t your body done a 360?
In: Mathematics
Draw it out on paper. The exercise is asking you to form a triangle, but the WORDING of it is tricky and your brain just automatically replaces the angles because we gloss over things that are wrong.
Draw a straight line and then draw the perpendicular, and 60 degrees is less than 90, so turn a little bit LESS than that perpendicular. Are you going to form a triangle going this way? Nope, you’re going to form a hexagon.
The fact is, you have to turn 120 degrees 3 times in order to draw a triangle. If you turn only 60 degrees you won’t form a triangle you’ll form a hexagon.
So the exercise should say: walk one mile, then turn 120 degrees then walk another mile and repeat. The exercise is tricking you with asking for 60 degree turns, and when you draw it on paper your brain just substitutes the angles of the triangle for the angles you turned. But you turn 120 degrees not 60.
And 3×120=360.
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