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I have a given parallelogram. The diagonals of it are congruent. How do I prove it is a rectangle?

User Teki
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1 Answer

19 votes
19 votes

Okay, here we have this:

We can see that the given parallelogram is ABCD, so as it's a parellelogram and the diagonals of it are congruent we have the following:

AC=BD (Given)

AB=DC (Definition of parallelogram)

AD=AD (Common side)

Then by congruence we obtain that:

ΔACD≅ΔABD (SSS Congruent Postulate)

∠CDA≅∠BAD (The CPCTC theorem)

And as by definition the adjacent angles of a parallelogram are supplementary:

∠CDA+∠BAD=180

And as they are congruent and supplementary this mean that are right triangles.

So, as ∠CDA≅∠BAD, we can replace in the last equation ∠BAD with ∠CDA, getting the following:

∠CDA+∠BAD=180

∠CDA+ ∠CDA=180

2 ∠CDA=180

∠CDA=180/2

∠CDA=90° (It's a right angle)

Therefore since if a parallelogram has a right angle then it must be a rectangle.

I have a given parallelogram. The diagonals of it are congruent. How do I prove it-example-1
User Benbo
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