160k views
2 votes
Find the area of the equilateral triangle below (remember, this is a regular polygon).

Find the area of the equilateral triangle below (remember, this is a regular polygon-example-1
User Networks
by
4.9k points

1 Answer

4 votes

Equilateral triangles have interior angles of measure 60º. AL bisects angle MAY, so triangle ALY has angles 30º, 60º, and 90º. This means AY and LY occur in a ratio of √3 to 1. AY is half of AN, so AY = 9 and LY = 9/√3 = 3√3.

We can split up triangle MAN into 6 triangles with the same area as ALY, whose area is

1/2 * AY * LY = 1/2 * 9 * 3√3 = (27√3)/2

so that MAN has area

6 * (27√3)/2 = 81√3, or about 140.296.

Alternatively, we can observe that ML has the same length as AL, which by the Pythagorean theorem has length

AL = √(AY^2 + LY^2) = 6√3

Then MAN has area

1/2 * AN * (ML + LY) = 1/2 * 18 * (6√3 + 3√3) = 81√3

User Alfonsina
by
4.8k points