Determine if the relationship describes a function.

Is the height of a right triangle a function of its area?
Area of right triangle (cm
2
) Height of triangle (cm)
? ?

The height of a right triangle is
of its area because for each input, there is
possible output.

1 answer

To determine if the height of a right triangle is a function of its area, we need to analyze the relationship between area and height.

The area \( A \) of a right triangle can be expressed with the formula:

\[ A = \frac{1}{2} \times b \times h \]

where \( b \) is the base length of the triangle and \( h \) is the height of the triangle.

If we are given the area \( A \) and want to find the height \( h \), we can manipulate the formula:

\[ h = \frac{2A}{b} \]

From this equation, we can see that for each area \( A \), the height \( h \) depends on the value of the base \( b \). If the base \( b \) is fixed, then for a given area, there is one unique height. However, if \( b \) can vary, then for the same area \( A \), there may be different possible heights \( h \) depending on the chosen base \( b \).

This means that the height of a right triangle can have multiple outputs (heights) for the same input (area), depending on the base length used.

Therefore, we conclude that:

The height of a right triangle is not a function of its area because for each input (area), there are multiple possible outputs (heights) depending on the choice of the base length \( b \).

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