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Circle Sector and Segment


Slices
There are two main "slices" of a circle:

The "pizza" slice is called a Sector. And the slice made by a chord is called a Segment.

Common Sectors
The Quadrant and Semicircle are two special types of Sector: Quarter of a circle is called a Quadrant. Half a circle is called a Semicircle.

Area of a Sector
You can work out the Area of a Sector by comparing its angle to the angle of a full circle. Note: I am using radians for the angles.

This is the reasoning:


A circle has an angle of 2 and an Area of: r2 So a Sector with an angle of (instead of 2) must have an area of: (/2) r2 Which can be simplified to: (/2) r2 Area of Sector = r2 (when is in radians) Area of Sector = ( /180) r2 (when is in degrees)

Arc Length
By the same reasoning, the arc length (of a Sector or Segment) is: L = r (when is in radians) L = ( /180) r (when is in degrees)

Area of Segment
The Area of a Segment is the area of a sector minus the triangular piece (shown in light blue here). There is a lengthy reason, but the result is a slight modification of the Sector formula:

Area of Segment = ( - sin ) r2 (when is in radians) Area of Segment = ( ( /180) - sin ) r2 (when is in degrees)

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