Squaring the Triangle

It’s an interesting little exercise in elementary trigonometry to turn the Sierpiński triangle…

A Sierpiński triangle


…into its circular equivalent:

A Sierpiński trisc


You could call that a trisc, because it’s a triangle turned into a disc. And here’s triangle-and-trisc in one image:

Sierpiński triangle + Sierpiński trisc


But what’s the square equivalent of a Sierpiński triangle? This is:

Square from Sierpiński triangle


You can do that directly, as it were:

Sierpiński triangle → square


Or you can convert the triangle into a disc, then the disc into a square, like this:

Sierpiński triangle → trisc → square


Now try converting the triangle into a pentagon:

Pentagon from Sierpiński triangle


Sierpiński triangle → pentagon


Sierpiński triangle → trisc → pentagon


And a hexagon:

Hexagon from Sierpiński triangle


Sierpiński triangle → hexagon


Sierpiński triangle → trisc → hexagon


But you can also convert the Sierpiński trisc back into a Sierpiński triangle, then into a Sierpiński trisc again:

Sierpiński triangle → trisc → triangle → trisc


Sierpiński triangle → trisc → triangle → trisc (animated at Ezgif)


Sierpiński triangle → trisc → triangle → trisc (b&w)


Sierpiński triangle → trisc → triangle → trisc (b&w) (animated at Ezgif)


After triangles come squares. Here’s a shape called a T-square fractal:

T-square fractal


And here’s the circular equivalent of a T-square fractal:

T-square fractal → T-squisc


T-square fractal + T-squisc


If a disc from a triangle is a trisc, then a disc from a square is a squisc (it would be pentisc, hexisc, heptisc for pentagonal, hexagonal and heptagonal fractals). Here’s the octagonal equivalent of a T-square fractal:

Octagon from T-square fractal


As with the Sierpiński trisc, you can use the T-squisc to create the T-octagon:

T-square fractal → T-squisc → T-octagon (color)


Or you can convert the T-square directly into the T-octagon:

T-square fractal to T-octagon fractal

But using the squisc makes for interesting multiple images:


T-square fractal → T-squisc → T-octagon (b&w)


T-square fractal → T-squisc → T-octagon → T-squisc


T-square fractal → T-squisc → T-octagon → T-squisc (animated at Ezgif)


The conversions from polygon to polygon look best when the number of sides in the higher polygon are a multiple of the number of sides in the lower, like this:

Sierpiński triangle → Sierpiński hexagon → Sierpiński nonagon


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