SOLUTION: The height of a triangle is 2 centimeters less than its base. If the area of the triangle is 28 square centimeters, find the base and height of the triangle. Round to the nearest t

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Question 964264: The height of a triangle is 2 centimeters less than its base. If the area of the triangle is 28 square centimeters, find the base and height of the triangle. Round to the nearest tenth of a centimeter if necessary.
Answer by macston(5194)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
b=base; h=height=b-2cm
Substitute for h.

Multiply each side by 2.
Subtract 56 from each side.

Solved by pluggable solver: SOLVE quadratic equation with variable
Quadratic equation (in our case ) has the following solutons:



For these solutions to exist, the discriminant should not be a negative number.

First, we need to compute the discriminant : .

Discriminant d=228 is greater than zero. That means that there are two solutions: .




Quadratic expression can be factored:

Again, the answer is: 8.54983443527075, -6.54983443527075. Here's your graph:

ANSWER 1: The base is 8.55 cm. (This would round to 8.5cm- kept extra digit for check)
h=b-2cm=8.55cm=6.55 cm (see above)
ANSWER 2: The height is 6.55 cm.
CHECK:
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