62.4k views
2 votes
The base of a triangle is 3 inches shorter than its height. Its area is 275 square inches. Set up a quadratic equation and solve to find its base and height.

User Tjholub
by
8.5k points

1 Answer

1 vote

Answer: hope its help

Let's start by assigning variables to the unknown quantities in the problem. Let h be the height of the triangle in inches, and let b be the base of the triangle in inches.

According to the problem, the base of the triangle is 3 inches shorter than its height. This can be expressed as:

b = h - 3

The formula for the area of a triangle is:

A = (1/2)bh

We are given that the area of the triangle is 275 square inches, so we can substitute these values into the formula to get:

275 = (1/2)(h)(h-3)

Simplifying the right-hand side, we get:

275 = (1/2)(h^2 - 3h)

Multiplying both sides by 2 to eliminate the fraction, we get:

550 = h^2 - 3h

Rearranging this equation to standard quadratic form, we get:

h^2 - 3h - 550 = 0

Now we can solve for h using the quadratic formula:

h = (-b ± sqrt(b^2 - 4ac)) / (2a)

In this case, a = 1, b = -3, and c = -550, so we can substitute these values into the formula to get:

h = (-(-3) ± sqrt((-3)^2 - 4(1)(-550))) / (2(1))

Simplifying the expression inside the square root, we get:

h = (3 ± sqrt(2209)) / 2

We can ignore the negative solution since height must be positive, so we get:

h = (3 + sqrt(2209)) / 2 ≈ 29.04

Now that we know the height of the triangle is approximately 29.04 inches, we can use the equation b = h - 3 to find the length of the base:

b = 29.04 - 3 = 26.04

Therefore, the base of the triangle is approximately 26.04 inches, and the height is approximately 29.04 inches.

Explanation:

User Gasparuff
by
8.4k points

No related questions found

Welcome to QAmmunity.org, where you can ask questions and receive answers from other members of our community.

9.4m questions

12.2m answers

Categories