Question

a farmer can fit 1 cow per 50 square feet of area inside of a pen. Determine how many cows he can fit inside the area of triangle shaped pen with sides of length 30 ft, 25 ft, 40 ft.

Answer 1

First, determine the area of the triangle. When all sides of the triangle are given, you can determine its area through the semi-perimeter. This is the half of a perimeter.

s = (30 + 25 + 40)/2
s = 47.5

Then, we apply the Heron's formula:

A = square root [s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)], where a, b and c are side lengths of the triangle

A = square root [47.5(47.5-30)(47.5-25)(47.5-40)]
A = 374.53 sq feet

To find the number of cows, divide the area by 50:
Number of cows = 373.53 ft2 / 50 ft2 per cow
Number of cows = 7.4906

The estimated number of cow is 7.