Question

please help! A student claims that a figure has rotational symmetry and that the angle of rotational symmetry is 360 degrees. Critique the student's statement.

Answer 1

When thinking about rotational symmetry, you must remember that rotational symmetry means if you are given a figure, and you turn the figure, you end up with the same figure. This happens when you have regular polygons, and each angle is congruent. In order to find the angle of rotation, you divide 360 by the number of angle you are given. if you rotated 360 degrees, that means 360/360=11. Your figure only had one angle, so it can't even be a polynomial! Also, every figure in the world will look exactly like it started if rotated 360 degrees, so this would not be logical.