Big Ideas Math Geometry, 2014
BI
Big Ideas Math Geometry, 2014 View details
2. Areas of Circles and Sectors
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Exercise 39 Page 608

Practice makes perfect
a Let's consider a circle with a radius of 3 inches.
To complete the given table, we will use the formula to find the area of a sector of a circle with arc measure x. Area of a sector_y = x/360* π r^2 Let's substitute r=3 into the formula above.
y = x/360* π r^2
y = x/360* π ( 3)^2
Simplify right-hand side
y = x/360* 9π
y = 9π x/360
y = π x/40
y = π/40x
Finally, we will substitute the corresponding value of x to find each value of y.
x 30^(∘) 60^(∘) 90^(∘) 120^(∘) 150^(∘) 180^(∘)
y π/40^(∘)* 30^(∘) = 3π/4 π/40^(∘)* 60^(∘) = 3π/2 π/40^(∘)* 90^(∘) = 9π/4 π/40^(∘)* 120^(∘) = 3π π/40^(∘)* 150^(∘) = 15π/4 π/40^(∘)* 180^(∘) = 9π/2
Rounded Value (in^2) 2.4 4.7 7.1 9.4 11.8 14.1
b Let's graph the data in the table we completed in the previous part. To do that, we place the arc measures along the x-axis and the areas of the sectors along the y-axis.
c As we can see in the graph we did in Part B, the relationship between x and y is linear.
It can be seen that the rate of change is constant.

Alternative Solution

Algebraic Approach

To find the values of y in Part A, we used the formula below. y = π/40* x As we can see, this formula shows a linear relationship between x and y with a rate of change of π40.

d Since we now are considering a circle with a radius of 5 inches, we have that the formula to find the value of y changes as follows.

y = x/360*π(5)^2 ⇓ y = 5π/72x This new formula is different from the one we used in Part A. Therefore, if we repeat the three previous parts with this formula, the areas will change but the answer from Part C will not, because it is still a linear relationship.