Packing Series of Lenses in a Circle: An Area Converging to 2/3 of the Disc

Abstract

We describe a series of parallel lenses with constant proportions packed in a circle. To construct n lenses, a regular 2(n + 1)-gon is drawn with a central diagonal of 2r length, followed by an array of n parallel diagonals perpendicular to the former. These diagonals and the central angle of the pair of peripherals, the shortest diagonals, are used to construct n rhombi. The rhombi define the shape of lenses tangential to them. To construct the arcs of the lenses, beams perpendicular to the sides of each rhombus are drawn. Four beams radiating from the top and bottom vertices of each rhombus intersect in the centers of a pair of coaxal circles. Thus, the vertical axis of each rhombus coincides with the radical axis of the pair. The intersection of the pair represents the corresponding lens. All n lenses form a tangential sequence along the central diagonal. Their cusps circumscribe the polygon and the lenses themselves. The area covered by the lenses converges to (2/3) πr2.