SOLUTION: The altitude of a triangle is 3 inches more than its base. What are the dimensions if the area of the triangle is 29 square inches?

Question 111378: The altitude of a triangle is 3 inches more than its base. What are the dimensions if the area of the triangle is 29 square inches?
Answer by edjones(8007) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
a=b+3
ab/2=A
b(b+3)/2=29
2b(b+3)/2=29*2
b(b+3)=58
b^2+3b=58
b^2+3b-58=58-58
b^2+3b-58=0

Solved by pluggable solver: SOLVE quadratic equation (work shown, graph etc)

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=241 is greater than zero. That means that there are two solutions: .

Quadratic expression can be factored:

Again, the answer is: 6.26208734813001, -9.26208734813001. Here's your graph:

b=6.262...
a=9.262...
Check:
6.262*9.262/2=29 approx.

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