Darts and Kites

Explore the geometry of these dart and kite shapes!
Exploring and noticing Working systematically Conjecturing and generalising Visualising and representing Reasoning, convincing and proving
Being curious Being resourceful Being resilient Being collaborative

Problem



Image
Darts and Kites

The diagram shows a rhombus $PQRS$ with an internal point $O$ such that $OQ = OR = OS = 1$ unit. Penrose used this rhombus, split into two quadrilaterals, a dart and a kite, to make his famous tiling which fills the plane but, unlike a tessellation, does not repeat itself by translation or rotation.

Find all the angles in the diagram, show that $POR$ is a straight line and show that triangles $PRS$ and $QRO$ are similar. Hence prove that the length of the side of the rhombus is equal to the Golden Ratio $(1+ \sqrt{5})/2$.