Angles – Critical Thinking(A)

The study of angles and their relationships to lines which form them are one of the most important areas of science & civilizations. Let us see some of them

1. How did the Egyptians build their pyramids? How did they know the angle at which each side had to be sloping so that all the four edges meet at the same point at the top? How did they ensure that the same angle was maintained for all the four sides?

2. When the Konkan Railway was built they had to make tunnels through the mountains to lay the rail track. They had to start boring the tunnel from both ends of the mountain side. How would they ensure that when the tunnels proceed from both ends of the mountain, they would meet each other somewhere inside the mountain? Can you imagine what would happen if both the tunnels did not meet?

3. Mount Everest is declared as the highest peak in the world at least a hundred years before the peak was climbed. How did they find its height?

4. A map of a country is made the way it will look from a few miles up in the air. It shows the way a river flows or the location of many towns with respect to each other. How did they draw maps in the olden times when they could not fly over a country?

All these were possible only with the understanding of angles and their relationships to shapes in which they occur.