Hidden Heptagon

We recently found a heptagon hidden on the underside of a Wegman’s rectangle cake, in a design all around the edges. (I’m no longer sure why we thought to look at the bottom of the cake, especially since I’m pretty sure we hadn’t cut into it at this point.)

The heptagons are subtle, because they’re not regular and they look like they’re masquerading as either hexagons or octagons. But they’re there:

In retrospect, it might not be too surprising. Wegmans is, after all, the store that thought to put heptagons and nonagons on the design of their cookie cakes (from back in the day when I thought heptagons were unusual, instead of all over the place).

Hooray!

Yet Another Heptagon

I recently found a heptagon in a surprise place: Wikipedia. Not on the heptagon page: I was actually looking up copyright info for the blue triangle I used in this post, and I noticed that the copyright statement, explaining that the figure was a simple geometric figure and so couldn’t be copyrighted, actually had a picture of a heptagon on the right to illustrate (click for a more legible version):

Go Wikipedia!

It does occur to me that the copyright notice might actually be copyrighted. Recursion anyone?

Another real-life heptagon!

I found this photo by Steven Pam, entitled 7, of the dome in the former Melbourne Magistrates Court in Melbourne, Australia. It makes me happy to see an example of a regular heptagon used in architecture. According to Wikipedia the original court was opened in 1914, but moved to Williams Street in 1995. In poking around the web, it looks like this might be the building on the northwest corner of Russell and LaTrobe streets. (There are some pictures of the outside here.)

Money Money Money

Just so you don’t think that the Harry Potter game is the only place to find cool polygonal coins, here’s a question for you: what shape is the Susan B. Anthony dollar? Yes, it’s round, but if you look more closely you’ll see the outline of a regular hendecagon — an 11-sided polygon!

Grocery Store Polygons: Cookie Cake Tops

The post two days ago (Junk Food Geometry) focused on edible polygons, but perhaps my favorite examples of grocery store polygons are inedible: the cookie cake tops at Wegmans. The aspect that stood out initially to me is that they are non-standard polygons. The medium sized one, shown to the left, is a heptagon! This cookie top and a pillbox we once found are the only two real-life examples I’ve seen of regular heptagons.  Edited to add :  of course, within days I found heptagons in a Harry Potter game and in coins.