C1 Diff

Take a look at the above image.

Let's find the area of each triangle individually:

The area of the triangle on the left side of the diagram is $\frac{1}{2}(h)(w)$
And the area of the triangle on the right is $\frac{1}{2}(h)(c-w)$

Add them together to get the total area for the large triangle

$\frac{1}{2}(h)(w) + \frac{1}{2}(h)(c-w) = \frac{1}{2}(h)(w+(c-w)) = \frac{1}{2}(h)(c)$

So, as you can see, the area for the large triangle is indeed $\frac{1}{2} \times base \times height$.

Image URL: http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hosted-sites/R.Knott/Pythag/alt.gif

Wow, if you could have said that at the start of the thread, my problem would have been solved.

Haha sorry I only just saw this thread.