Congratulations to all the following who sent in very good solutions to this problem:
David Lowe, age 15, Trinity School, Carlisle (whose solution was the first to arrive); Babak Shirazi, age 17, Woodhouse SF College, London; Chen Yiwen, age 16, The Chinese High School, Singapore; Nathan Allpress, age 14, Riccarton High School, Churchtown, New Zealand; Lee Jia Hui, age 18, National Junior College, Singapore; Julian Steed (not a student); and finally Alexander Maryanovsky, age 18, Shevah-Mofet School, Israel. The following solution is made up of bits supplied by several of these contributors.

The pentagon is made of 5 triangles exactly the same as AOB, and the pentangle is made of 5 shapes exactly the same as AOBC.


Area(pentangle) Area(pentagon) = Area(AOBC) Area(AOB) = 1- Area(ACB) Area(AOB) = 1- Area(DCB) Area(DOB) = 1- DC DO = CO DO < 1 2 .

In order to calculate this ratio exactly we first find the angles and then use trigonometry.
AOB= 72


DOB= 1 2 AOB= 36

As AC is parallel to PM and CB is parallel to MK,
ACB=PMK= 108 .


DCB= 1 2 ACB= 54 .


Area(pentangle) Area(pentagon) = 1- DBtan36 DBtan54 = 1- tan36 tan54 = 1-tan2 36 = 1-(5-25) = 25-4 = 0.47   approx.

This ratio is just less than 0.5 meaning the pentangle is a bit smaller than half the pentagon.

Footnote: You don't need a calculator, from the diagram it is possible to calculate exact values for the trig. ratios for 18 , 36 , 54 and 72 . All the angles marked with a spot can be shown to be 36 using simple properties of triangles. Let CA=CB=x. The triangle PAC is an isosceles triangle with base angles of 72 . If PA=PC=1 then PB=1+x. Triangles PAB and ACB are similar, hence
x 1 = 1 1+x

This gives a quadratic equation which can be solved to give x= 1 2 (5-1).

Now we have AD= 1 2 and so (using Pythagoras Theorem to find CD):
tan2 36 =4 CD2 =4( x2 - 1 4 )=4 x2 -1=5-25.