What is the area of the triangle in the diagram?

Question

fwer74 · Answer

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mathmale · Answer

The basic formula for the area of a triangle is A = (1/2) b h, where b is the length of the base and h is the height.  As you can see, your triangle is a right triangle with hypotenuse and two shorter sides.  Use either side to represent the base and the other one to represent the height.

Look at the longer leg (not the hypotenuse).  It stretches from (0,0) to

mathmale · Answer

$$(x _{2},y _{2}).$$

mathmale · Answer

You need to come up with an expression for the length of this longer leg.  Use the Pythagorean Theorem (or, alternatively, the distance formula).