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Draw a triangle on tracing paper. Fold the altitude from each vertex.
Triangle is graphed.
Triangle is graphed.
Consider triangle from an earlier activity.
Consider triangle from earlier activities.
A tessellation covers the entire plane with shapes that do not overlap or leave gaps.
The 3 medians of a triangle always intersect in 1 point. We can use coordinate geometry to show that the altitudes of a triangle intersect in 1 point, too. The 3 altitudes of triangle are shown here. They appear to intersect at the point . By finding their equations, we can prove this is true.
The slopes of sides and are 0, , and 2. The altitude from is the vertical line . The slope of the altitude from is . Since the altitude goes through its equation is . The slope of the altitude from is . Following this slope over to the -axis we can see that the -intercept is 8. So the equation for this altitude is .
We can now verify that lies on all 3 altitudes by showing that the point satisfies the 3 equations. By substitution we see that each equation is true when and .