Expert: Sherry Wallin - 6/30/2010

Question
can you teach me if how to complete the area of the triangle.

Answer
Marijhel~
    Please help clarify what you mean by complete the area of a triangle. Do you mean compute the area of a triangle?? If so, then you need to find the height of the triangle or maybe it is already given to you. If not given, there is usually enough information given to find it. The height will be the distance from one angle to the opposite side but you have to make sure that where the line goes from the angle to the other side that it touches that side at a right angle, which they also call altitude. There are three different **(usually) altitudes (heights) to any triangle but it doesn't matter which one you use because in the formula for finding the area of a triangle you take 1/2 times the height times the length of the side where you formed the altitude (height) and this is usually referred to as the base:
Area of a triangle = 1/2 * base * height

Please feel free to ask additional questions if you need more clarification.

Math Prof

**If the triangle is isosceles there will only be two different altitudes and if the triangle is equilateral then there will be only one different altitude, otherwise there are 3 different altitudes in any other type triangle.

Suppose you are told that the height is 2 feet and the base is 3 ft then the area of that triangle will be (1/2)*2*3 = 3 square feet