ABSTRACT
Does the prospect of transforming one polygon into another intrigue you? It is not done by wizardry, but by a mathematical procedure called dissection. Dissection is the process of taking a plane geometrical object of a particular shape, cutting it up into pieces, and then reassembling all the pieces to make another shape. We will study how polygons such as triangles and parallelograms can be transformed by dissection, or, as we shall say, dissected into other polygons having the same area. We will prove the surprising fact that every polygon can be dissected into any other polygon having the same area. The investigation is designed as a series of challenges. In preparation, here are two warm-up questions.
