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Kaleidoscopes

What happens if one were to use not only two but three mirrors? There are only few possible ways to align these mirrors in such a way that they form a triangle where every corner angle is a fitting angle (i.e. a divisor of 180°): The angle sum in a triangle is 180°, so the only possible combinations are (60°, 60°, 60°), (90°, 45°, 45°) and (90°, 60°, 30°). The following three applets demonstrate the resulting three wallpaper groups.


(60°, 60°, 60°)

Please enable Java for an interactive construction (with Cinderella).


(90°, 45°, 45°)

Please enable Java for an interactive construction (with Cinderella).


(90°, 60°, 30°)

Please enable Java for an interactive construction (with Cinderella).

Dr. Stickler can be moved around in each of these applets.

In real life it lokks like this:

K1.png K2.png K3.png


Download files:


Angled mirrors $\hookleftarrow$ Contents $\hookrightarrow$ Wallpaper groups