Sarah Walker
Posted on Monday, 13 October, 2003 - 09:02 pm:
My 9-year-old son has been tasked with finding out the name for a million-sided polygon? Does anyone know? He's very keen to find out as they get a merit mark and a sweet if successful!

Thanks v much in advance.
Matthew Buckley
Posted on Monday, 13 October, 2003 - 09:19 pm:
I know that a 10000 sided shape is called a myriagon, but I'm not sure about 1000000!

Oh well - perhaps someone else will know.
Toby Metcalfe
Posted on Monday, 13 October, 2003 - 09:37 pm:
I've looked on several Math webpages, they only go up to the myriagon, perhaps it is a trick question, a circle?
Emma McCaughan
Posted on Monday, 13 October, 2003 - 10:15 pm:
Most people start calling them 40-gons, 100-gons, etc before we get anywhere near a 1000000-gon (or 106 -gon?).
Sarah Sarah
Posted on Tuesday, 14 October, 2003 - 03:36 pm:
I'd call it a megagon
Emma McCaughan
Posted on Tuesday, 14 October, 2003 - 05:37 pm:
That sounds sense - we use greek prefixes for the first few, and mega is greek. On the other hand, I believe it actually means big/great, and it's only when it was poached as a metric prefix that it started being used to mean 1000000.
Demetres will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong about the strict translation!
Sarah Walker
Posted on Tuesday, 14 October, 2003 - 08:39 pm:
Thanks everyone! He can go back to the teacher with 'myriagon' for 10000 sided shape and megagon for million sided.

Will keep you posted if that's right!
Demetres Christofides
Posted on Monday, 20 October, 2003 - 04:00 pm:
That's true mega means big/great in Greek. It certainly deosn't mean 1000000. For a computer scientist, megagon might mean a 1048576-gon.

I prefer n-gon for n > 12 with just minor exceptions.

Demetres
Marcos
Posted on Monday, 20 October, 2003 - 05:49 pm:
Demetres,

Does muriagw no even exist (as a word) in greek? I've never heard it being used before (although it would be rather uncommon so that might not mean much).

If it does then using a similar convention a million-sided polygon could be called an ekatommyriagon (possibly spelt slightly differentely) as 'ekatommyrio' =ek ato mmurio (n) is the greek word for a million (literally means 100x10000)

Marcos

Demetres Christofides
Posted on Monday, 20 October, 2003 - 08:06 pm:
To be honest I've never heard the word but I assume it exists.

I suppose that for a million side polygon (if the word exists) would be hekatommyriagon or hecatommyriagon. However I made a google search and neither word appears.
Mr. X
Posted on Monday, 20 October, 2003 - 09:27 pm:
yup
Dan Goodman
Posted on Tuesday, 21 October, 2003 - 12:08 am:
For all practical purposes, I'd refer to a 1,000,000-gon as a circle ;-).
Mark_Jordan
Posted on Tuesday, 11 November, 2003 - 02:21 pm:
i'd call it a megagon, too
mega - (million) - gon