Question

Find the value of x. AB=18, BC=8, CD=5.

Answer 1

Do this by similarity of triangles.

You should get the answer then.

Answer 2

No, i dont really understand what you mean. :/ Can you explain it a bit more thoroughly?

Answer 3

Sure thing!

Are you familiar with Similarity of triangles?

Answer 4

Somewhat. Can you explain?

Answer 5

Yeah.

Answer 6

Hold on I'll just explain properly in a sec.

Answer 7

Do you know what congruency of triangles is?

Answer 8

@Ashleyisakitty ?

Answer 9

Ok..................

Congruency [although it is not a word] is a property of triangles to prove that they are equal, ie. they have equal sides and equal angles.

Whereas Similarity is just a property to prove that 2 triangles have the same ratio of sides and the same angles.

For eg.

We can say that all circles are similar but not congruent. Only the circles with radius = 'some number' are congruent. All squares are similar but only squares with the same dimensions ie the same side are congruent. Similarity becomes congruency when the dimensions are scaled up or down, depending on the case.

But all that is irrelevant for this topic. Now we are going to concentrate only on Similarity.

Okay?

Answer 10

I am not familiar with any other method of solving this question, So I can only solve this using similarity. Use this link to understand more about it: http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/triangles-similar.html