Question

how do you find the area of a equillateral triangle if you are given the a point from the center to a corner?

Answer 1

Do you know the length of any of the sides?

Answer 2

no
they are all the same and from a point in the center to one of the corners is 8 in

Answer 3

Got it. You'll have to use a right triangle. Hang on a sec.

Answer 4

i need help

Answer 5

So, if you draw a line from the center to a corner, you split that corner into two angles.

Answer 6

Each corner in an equilateral triangle has the same angle, which is 180 / 3.

Answer 7

ok then what?

Answer 8

Hehe. One sec, I'm workin through it here too :)

Answer 9

ok

Answer 10

So you can form a right triangle that is made up of:

1) the line from the center to a corner
2) a line from the center point to the middle of one of the sides
3) half of that side

I've attached an image, the gray part is the triangle you're using.

Answer 11

You can use SOHCAHTOA to find the length of that half side, and then you can double that to get the length of the base. You already have 1/2 of the length of the height (that's the original number they gave you), so then you can find the area of the triangle.