The two triangles in this problem share a side so that only one rigid transformation is required to exhibit the congruence between them. In general more transformations are required and the "Why does SSS work?'' and "Why does SAS work?'' problems show how this works.

For these particular triangles, three reflections were necessary to express how to move from ABC to DEF. Sometimes, however, one reflection or two reflections will suffice. Since any rigid motion will take triangle ABC to a congruent triangle DEF, this shows the remarkable fact that any rigid motion of the plane can be expressed as one reflection, a composition of two reflections, or a composition of three reflections.

This particular sequence of transformations which exhibits a congruency between triangles ABC and DEF used one translation, one rotation, and one reflection. There are many other ways in which to exhibit the congruency and students and teachers are encouraged to explore the different possibilities.