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Rhombi, a la Shmoop.

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The Richardson Family Rhombus has been passed from generation to generation…

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…and is rumored to bring bad luck to all of its possessors.

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There’s just something shifty about the rhombus’ perfect shape.

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On this segment, we inspect the fabled rhombus to see if any connection can be made between

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its geometry and its shady history.

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This is “Behind the Diamond.”

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Like all rhombi, the Richardson Family Rhombus is a parallelogram…

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a quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides… with all four sides congruent.

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This particular characteristic became a source of terror for the wealthy Wurster family…

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…who eventually went insane because they could not tell if the Rhombus was in the same

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position they had left it.

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Had it been flipped over during the night? Was it facing the other way? No one knew.

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Another shared characteristic with other rhombi was its diagonals, which were perpendicular,

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and bisected all four of its vertex angles.

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This eventually led to the mental degeneration of the gem expert Sir Pipswhat…

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…who spent his entire life attempting to break the famed Rhombus into two perfectly

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congruent isosceles triangles.

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He could never actually bring himself to touch the priceless rhombus,

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and ultimately ended up in a mental hospital.

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The Richardson Family Rhombus is currently in the possession of a family

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who refused to be mentioned on this program.

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Will the Rhombus’ perfect geometry get the best of them?

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Find out next time, on a future installment of “Behind the Diamond.”

Full Transcript