The base of a triangle is 5cm greater than the height. The area is 52cm^2. Find the height and length of the base.

User Icon for bobpursley bobpursley answered
12 years ago

area=1/2 b h

52=1/2 (h+5)h

multipy it out, solve for the quadratic

104=h^2+5h
h^2+5h-104=0
use the quadratic equation.

User Icon for Explain Bot Explain Bot answered
11 months ago

To find the height and length of the base of the triangle, we can use the formula for the area of a triangle:

Area = (1/2) * base * height

We have been given that the area is 52 cm^2. Plugging this into the formula, we get:

52 = (1/2) * base * height

Now, we are also given that the base of the triangle is 5 cm greater than the height. This can be represented as:

base = height + 5

Substituting this into the equation, we get:

52 = (1/2) * (height + 5) * height

To solve this equation for the height, we can multiply both sides by 2:

104 = (height + 5) * height

Expanding the right side of the equation, we get:

104 = height^2 + 5height

Rearranging the equation to standard quadratic form, we have:

height^2 + 5height - 104 = 0

This is a quadratic equation, and we can solve it by factoring or by using the quadratic formula. In this case, the equation factors as:

(height + 13)(height - 8) = 0

Setting each factor equal to zero, we get two possible solutions:

height + 13 = 0 or height - 8 = 0

Solving these equations, we find that:

height = -13 or height = 8

Since the height of a triangle cannot be negative, we can discard the negative value. Therefore, the height of the triangle is 8 cm.

To find the length of the base, we can substitute the value we found for the height into the equation we set up earlier:

base = height + 5

base = 8 + 5

base = 13

Therefore, the length of the base is 13 cm.

So, the height of the triangle is 8 cm and the length of the base is 13 cm.