How To Construct Rhombuses inside a

Pentagon?
Srinivasan Nenmeli Ph D

This article is a "how-to" tutorial on constructing
rhombuses inside a regular pentagon, using only a
ruler. The reader should refer to my previous article:
"How to construct a Pentagon without compass or
protractor" in www.scribd.com.

The method involves the application of Fibonacci
sequence and Golden Ratio: phi = = 1.618....
The method is illustrated i n the accompanying figure.
Side and diagonal of a regular pentagon.
Consider the regular pentagon ABCDE shown in the
figure.
If the side is of length S, then the diagonals are
S


where phi = 1.618.
In the figure, BE = Phi x S.
The two other diagonals AC and AD divide BE in the
following proportions:
BF : FG : GE = 1//: 1/. :
1
/
Assume the side s =1 in this discussion.
Note the following:
BF + FG = 1/ + 1/. = (1 + )/
2

Since (1+) =
2
,
we get BG = 1 . This relation is the basis for the
construction of the rhombus: ABIE.; that is
AB = AE = BI = IE



Inner Pentagon and Inner Rhombus
The diagonals of a pentagon intersect to from an inner
pentagon GFJIH, as shown in the figure.
We can construct an inner rhombus KJIH.
The side length of this rhombus is 1/
2 .

Therefore the inner rhombus has a side only 1/2.618 of
the original rhombus ABIE.
We can derive expressions for the area of the rhombus
ABIE and the inner rhombus KJIH using the familiar
formula: area = (1/2)p.q
where p and q are the diagonals of the rhombus.
.

Inner of the inner rhombus
We can construct one more inner rhombus from the
pentagon GFJIH.
Indeed this construction is a fractal!!
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