The top row of the diagram shows ways of re-arranging the 3 'legs' of the M-shape so that there is a 'gap' corresponding to each 'leg'.

Using the previous finding, we can state that the minimum area of the M-shape occurs when the each leg and corresponding gap are the same. The bottom row of the diagram shows that this occurs when each leg is 1/6 of the width of the M-shape.

We can use a similar argument to show that a shape of this sort with n legs will have a minum area when w = 1/(2n).

We look at ways of proving the leg = gap result on the NEXT PAGE.