Find the area of a parallelogram with sides of 12 inches and 8 inches if one of the angles is 120
degrees
please help me

Question

Find the area of a parallelogram with sides of 12 inches and 8 inches if one of the angles is 120
degrees
  please help me

anonymous · Answer

Simplify it into a square! A parallelogram is basically a square that has been mashed a bit.  If you can find the height of the parallelogram, you can easily find the area.

SO, knowing that one angle is 120 degrees, we know that is the obtuse angle.  By which, the angle is 30 degrees past what a square would be (90 degrees on all angles). To solve for the height, we just need to use the cosine function.  In this case, cos(30) = h/8.

Therefore, the height of the parallelogram is 8cos(30) = 4*sqrt(3)
Meaning the area is equal to 48*sqrt(3)