Regular polygon

A regular polygon has equal side lengths and equal interior angles. Its vertices on a circle are scaled and rotated roots of unity.

A regular heptagon is a regular polygon with seven sides. Its unit-circle vertices have complex coordinates $e^{2\pi ik/7}$ for $k=0,\dots ,6$. It cannot be constructed from a unit segment by a straightedge and compass construction: the first coordinate $\cos (2\pi /7)$ has degree three over $\mathbb{Q}$, since the seventh cyclotomic field has degree six and degree two over its real subfield. Every finite constructible coordinate extension has power-of-two degree, which cannot contain a degree-three subextension by the tower law.

For $n\ge 3$ cyclically ordered planar vertices, let $e_j=v_{j+1}-v_j$, with indices modulo $n$. They describe a convex regular polygon exactly when $e_0\ne 0$ and there is a single choice of sign for which every successive edge vector is obtained by a rotation through $2\pi /n$ in that orientation. Necessity follows from equal sides and equal exterior angles. Conversely, the edge vectors have the form $R^j{e}_0$. Their sum is zero because the corresponding geometric series runs through the $n$ distinct roots of unity. Summing its partial series shows that the vertices are a translated and scaled copy of those roots, so they form a convex regular polygon. A larger turn such as $4\pi /5$ can instead trace a star, which is why merely checking a constant turning angle is insufficient.

A regular octagon of side length s has area 2(1+sqrt(2))s^2.