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Perpendiculars Picking Probability (Posted on 2005-11-24) Difficulty: 3 of 5
You choose a random point, uniformly, within an equilateral triangle.

What's the average distance to the three sides?

See The Solution Submitted by Old Original Oskar!    
Rating: 3.8000 (5 votes)

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Solution Old problem | Comment 2 of 6 |

I am nearly sure I have seen this problem elsewhere on this site.

The sum of the distances to the three sides of an equilateral is constant for all interior points.  So the average is a third of this sum.

By choosing the centre of the triangle, the distance to each side is height/3.

Either way, for the triangle with unit side, the sum = sqrt(3)/2, so the average is sqrt(3)/6.


  Posted by goFish on 2005-11-24 10:06:11
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