Look around, and you will see tons of circular objects. The simple reason is they are symmetric, proportionate, and the most easy to handle. Circular objects can be moved from one place to another just by rolling. But, why is it that a circle is round and why are circular or round objects easy to roll around compared to other shapes?
Why are wheels round in shape?
The answer lies in the subject of mathematics – geometry. When you look at an equilateral triangle, the internal angle is 60 degrees and the external angle is 120 degrees. When you look at a square the internal angle is 90 degrees and the external angle is also 90 degrees. As you keep increasing the number of sides, you can observe that the internal angle increases and the external angle reduces. This means relatively the force required to push the body forward will reduce as the number of sides increase.
A circle is like a polygon with many sides so small that it looks like a circle. So, the sum of the internal angles (n-2)180 becomes very large and the external angle becomes relatively small. The formula for the exterior angle will be 180 minus (n-2)*180/n.
With infinite sides, the polygon will start to become a circle. As the exterior angle reduces, it requires less and less force to roll the object of that shape. This is why wheels are round in shape!
Wheels are everywhere around and define the very evolution of humans. It is amazing how we identified this with intuition long before during the Sumerian times and in the early civilizations itself. Therefore, at UnicMinds, we always say mathematics is first intuition and then the formulae becomes easy to understand.
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Hope this is useful, thank you.
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