Properties of bisect-diagonal quadrilaterals

Abstract

The general class of quadrilaterals where one diagonal is bisected by the other diagonal has appeared very rarely in the geometrical literature, but they have been named several times in connection with quadrilateral classifications. Günter Graumann strangely gave these objects two different names in [1, pp. 192, 194]: sloping-kite and sliding-kite. A. Ramachandran called them slant kites in [2, p. 54] and Michael de Villiers called them bisecting quadrilaterals in [3, pp. 19, 206]. The latter is a pretty good name, although a bit confusing: what exactly is bisected?We have found no papers and only two books where any theorems on such quadrilaterals are studied. In each of the books, one necessary and sufficient condition for such quadrilaterals is proved (see Theorem 1 and 2 in the next section). The purpose of this paper is to investigate basic properties of convex bisecting quadrilaterals, but we have chosen to give them a slightly different name. Let us first remind the reader that a quadrilateral whose diagonals have equal lengths is called an equidiagonal quadrilateral and one whose diagonals are perpendicular is called an orthodiagonal quadrilateral.