| The diagram shows the solution for 3 lines but the same principle applies to any regular polygon. For an -gon the angle marked at the centre of the circle will be . As gets larger the polygons will get smaller and the lines will 'radiate' out more like the spokes of a wheel. |
Here is an Octave program to do these calculations:
# divide disc into n+1 equal parts with n equal segments
# function y=s(n) y=sin(2*pi/n); endfunction
function y=t(n) y=tan(2*pi/n); endfunction
# function y=r(n) y=sqrt((2*pi)/(n*(n+1)*s(n))); endfunction
# function y=x(n) y=2*r(n)*sin(pi/n); endfunction
# function y=L(n)
z=pi*cot(pi/n);w=n*(n+1);
y=sin(pi/n)*r(n) + sqrt(1-(z/w));
endfunction
# disp(" ") disp("This gives [n,1/sqrt(n),r(n),x(n),L(n)]") disp(" ")
for n=(3:36) u=[n,1/sqrt(n),r(n),x(n),L(n)];disp(u) endfor
Here are the results for n = 3 to 36:
| n | 1/sqrt(n) | r(n) | x(n) | L(n) |
| 3 | 0.57735 | 0.77756 | 1.34677 | 1.59472 |
| 4 | 0.50000 | 0.56050 | 0.79267 | 1.31444 |
| 5 | 0.44721 | 0.46927 | 0.55166 | 1.20096 |
| 6 | 0.40825 | 0.41562 | 0.41562 | 1.14079 |
| 7 | 0.37796 | 0.37883 | 0.32873 | 1.10432 |
| 8 | 0.35355 | 0.35130 | 0.26888 | 1.08030 |
| 9 | 0.33333 | 0.32956 | 0.22543 | 1.06356 |
| 10 | 0.31623 | 0.31173 | 0.19266 | 1.05137 |
| 11 | 0.30151 | 0.29672 | 0.16719 | 1.04221 |
| 12 | 0.28868 | 0.28382 | 0.14692 | 1.03515 |
| 13 | 0.27735 | 0.27256 | 0.13045 | 1.02958 |
| 14 | 0.26726 | 0.26260 | 0.11687 | 1.02511 |
| 15 |
0.25820
|
0.25370 | 0.10550 | 1.02147 |
| 16 | 0.250000 | 0.245689 | 0.095863 | 1.018465 |
| 17 | 0.242536 | 0.238413 | 0.087617 | 1.015960 |
| 18 | 0.235702 | 0.231767 | 0.080492 | 1.013849 |
| 19 | 0.229416 | 0.225661 | 0.074285 | 1.012056 |
| 20 | 0.223607 | 0.220026 | 0.068839 | 1.010521 |
| 21 | 0.218218 | 0.214802 | 0.064029 | 1.009197 |
| 22 | 0.213201 | 0.209940 | 0.059755 | 1.008048 |
| 23 | 0.208514 | 0.205401 | 0.055937 | 1.007046 |
| 24 | 0.204124 | 0.201148 | 0.052510 | 1.006168 |
| 25 | 0.200000 | 0.197153 | 0.049420 | 1.005394 |
| 26 | 0.196116 | 0.193391 | 0.046621 | 1.004709 |
| 27 | 0.192450 | 0.189839 | 0.044078 | 1.004102 |
| 28 | 0.188982 | 0.186478 | 0.041758 | 1.003560 |
| 29 | 0.185695 | 0.183291 | 0.039634 | 1.003076 |
| 30 | 0.182574 | 0.180264 | 0.037685 | 1.002641 |
| 31 | 0.179605 | 0.177384 | 0.035891 | 1.002251 |
| 32 | 0.176777 | 0.174639 | 0.034235 | 1.001899 |
| 33 | 0.174078 | 0.172018 | 0.032703 | 1.001581 |
| 34 | 0.171499 | 0.169513 | 0.031281 | 1.001293 |
| 35 | 0.169031 | 0.167115 | 0.029960 | 1.001031 |
| 36 | 0.166667 | 0.164817 | 0.028730 | 1.000793 |