let's work with shape A, if u calculate the area of the triangle by adding up the area of the shapes that makes it up, blue triangel is 5, gray triangle is 12, two weird shapes are 15 put together, that'll be 32, but if u calculate the area of the big triangle by doing 5x13/2, u'll get 32.5, what does that mean?

triangle A is not a triangle, it only looks like one, hypotnuse(diagonal line of the triangle) of triangle A only looks straight, but the slope of the gray triangle is 3/8, while the slope of the blue triangle is 2/5, that means even tho the triangles has same area, the missing square is actually where the parts that are stick outside of the triangle if the hypotnuse was straight in triangle B

Posted by Alfred on 2003-01-12 15:58:44