SOLUTION: How do you find the area, in square meters, of an equilateral triangle with a perimeter of 36 m.

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Question 552375: How do you find the area, in square meters, of an equilateral triangle with a perimeter of 36 m.
Answer by neatmath(302) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

There are a couple different ways to do this.

One, you can divide the triangle up into 2 right triangles to more easily use the standard area of a triangle formula.

Of course we know that formula to be:

A=%281%2F2%29%2Ab%2Ah where b is the base and h is the height.

Or two, you can use the formula for the area of an equilateral triangle!

This formula is:

A=%28sqrt%283%29%2F4%29%2Aa%5E2 where a is the length of a side of the triangle.

Since the perimeter of your triangle is 36 m,

then each side must measure 36/3, or 12 m.

So we just need to plug this value of a=12 into the formula:

A=%28sqrt%283%29%2F4%29%2Aa%5E2

A=%28sqrt%283%29%2F4%29%2A12%5E2

A=%28sqrt%283%29%2F4%29%2A144

A=sqrt%283%29%2A36

A=36%2Asqrt%283%29 meters squared which is the exact answer.

You can use a calculator to find the approximate decimal equivalent,

but that is up to you to decide whether you need that.

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I hope this helps! :)

Email Scott: neatmath@yahoo.com for help with specific problems,

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