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My friends and I have gotten into an argument over whether or not there is/are opposites to a circle. Both sides have some valid points, but the main idea is whether or not there are opposite shapes.
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April 1, 2019

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I can't think of any ordinary

Stephen Maitzen
April 29, 2019 (changed May 8, 2019) Permalink

I can't think of any ordinary sense of "opposite" that allows for the existence of opposite shapes (i.e., closed plane figures). But you and your friends could invent a technical sense of "opposite" that allows for opposite shapes. Maybe the opposite of a shape is the mirror image of the shape along the vertical axis, or along the horizontal axis, or along some oblique axis, provided that opposite shapes never look the same. On that definition, a circle wouldn't have an opposite shape, but a triangle could. In any case, there's nothing to disagree about until you have a suitably precise definition of "opposite shape," which again I think you'll have to stipulate, because ordinary language doesn't supply one.

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