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1.12: Alternate Formula for the Area of a Triangle

Difficulty Level: At Grade Created by: CK-12
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You are studying the Gulf of Mexico in your Geography class. Your Instructor brings up the idea of the Bermuda Triangle. This is a place where, according to some, many planes get lost. Here is an illustration of it:

photocredit, www.earthspots.com

The first thing this makes you think of is your math class, since that class is your favorite. You would like to know just how big the Bermuda Triangle is. Unfortunately, the Bermuda Triangle isn't a right triangle. However, you do know that the lengths of one of the sides is 950 miles, the other side is 975 miles, and the angle between them is 60\begin{align*}60^\circ\end{align*}.

Is there any way to use this information to help you find out just how big the Bermuda Triangle is?

Read on, and at the end of this Concept, you'll be able to use the information presented here to calculate the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

Guidance

In Geometry, you learned that the area of a triangle is A=12bh\begin{align*}A=\frac{1}{2}bh\end{align*}, where b\begin{align*}b\end{align*} is the base and h\begin{align*}h\end{align*} is the height, or altitude. Now that you know the trig ratios, this formula can be changed around, using sine.

Looking at the triangle above, you can use sine to determine h,sinC=ha\begin{align*}h, \sin C = \frac{h}{a}\end{align*}. So, solving this equation for h\begin{align*}h\end{align*}, we have asinC=h\begin{align*}a\sin C=h\end{align*}. Substituting this for h\begin{align*}h\end{align*}, we now have a new formula for area.

A=12absinC

What this means is you do not need the height to find the area anymore. All you now need is two sides and the angle between the two sides, called the included angle.

Example A

Find the area of the triangle.

Solution: Using the formula, A=12 absinC\begin{align*}A = \frac{1}{2} \ ab \sin C\end{align*}, we have

A=12813sin82=4130.990=51.494

Example B

Find the area of the parallelogram.

Solution: Recall that a parallelogram can be split into two triangles. So the formula for a parallelogram, using the new formula, would be: A=212 absinC\begin{align*}A = 2 \cdot \frac{1}{2} \ ab \sin C\end{align*} or A=absinC\begin{align*}A = ab \sin C\end{align*}.

A=715sin65=95.162

Example C

Find the area of the triangle.

Solution: Using the formula, A=12 absinC\begin{align*}A = \frac{1}{2} \ ab \sin C\end{align*}, we have

A=1216.4519sin30=8.225190.5=78.14

Guided Practice

1. Find the area of the triangle.

2. Find the area of the triangle.

3. Find the area of the triangle.

Solutions:

1. Using the formula, A=12 absinC\begin{align*}A = \frac{1}{2} \ ab \sin C\end{align*}, we have

A=12410sin15=2100.2589=5.178

2. Using the formula, A=12 absinC\begin{align*}A = \frac{1}{2} \ ab \sin C\end{align*}, we have

A=12815sin25=4150.4226=25.356

3. Using the formula, A=12 absinC\begin{align*}A = \frac{1}{2} \ ab \sin C\end{align*}, we have

A=121011sin32=5110.53=29.15

Concept Problem Solution

Now that you know the equation for the area of a triangle in terms of two of the sides and the included angle, we can use that to solve for the area of the Bermuda Triangle:

A=12absinθA=12(950)(975)sin60A=12(950)(975)(.866)A=401066.25

The area of the triangle is approximately 401,006 square miles.

Explore More

Use the following picture for questions 1 and 2.

1. Find the values of a, b, and C needed for the formula to find the area of the triangle.
2. Now find the area of the triangle.

Use the following picture for questions 3 and 4.

1. Find the values of a, b, and C needed for the formula to find the area of the triangle.
2. Now find the area of the triangle.

Find the area of each triangle below.

Find the area of each parallelogram.

1. Describe another way you could have found the area of the parallelogram in the previous problem.
2. When you first learned about sine, you learned how it worked for right triangles. Explain why this method for calculating area uses sine, but works for non-right triangles.

Vocabulary Language: English

Included Angle

Included Angle

The included angle in a triangle is the angle between two known sides.
sine

sine

The sine of an angle in a right triangle is a value found by dividing the length of the side opposite the given angle by the length of the hypotenuse.

Date Created:

Sep 26, 2012

Feb 26, 2015
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