Similar Polygons: Introduction

Model Train

One great childhood memory for many of us is watching a model train go round and round the track, looking at the model buildings, trees and cars.  Model trains are a very popular hobby.  Many people spend a lot of time and money on their collection of model trains.  The high end model trains are exact replicas of the real things.  How do the builders know how big to make various parts of the trains?  They use the ratios and proportions we have learned about.  They design similar shapes that are simply smaller than the actual shape.  In this lesson, we are going to complete our study on similarity.  We will study similar polygons, what makes them similar and how to work with similar polygons.