McGraw Hill Glencoe Geometry, 2012
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McGraw Hill Glencoe Geometry, 2012 View details
2. Medians and Altitudes of Triangles
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Exercise 11 Page 340

Draw the medians of â–³ ABC and find their point of intersection.

(3,6)

Practice makes perfect

Let's start by plotting the given points on a coordinate plane and drawing â–³ ABC.

We are asked to find the coordinates of the centroid of â–³ ABC. This is the point of concurrency of the triangle's medians. A median of a triangle is a segment with one endpoint being a vertex and the other endpoint being the midpoint of the opposite side. cc Vertex & Opposite Side [0.8em] C & AB A & BC B & CALet's find the medians of â–³ ABC and then we can find their point of concurrency.

Median of AB

First, we will find the midpoint of AB by substituting the coordinates of A and B into the Midpoint Formula.

(x_1+x_2/2,y_1+y_2/2)
(- 1+ 3/2,11+ 1/2)
(2/2,12/2)
(1,6)

Now that we know the coordinates of the midpoint of AB, we can plot this point on our diagram. Let's name this point as N. Drawing a segment from C to N, we will get the median of AB.

Median of BC

Using the same process, we can find the midpoint of BC. This time we will substitute the coordinates of B and C into the Midpoint Formula.

(x_1+x_2/2,y_1+y_2/2)
â–¼
Substitute coordinates and evaluate
(3+ 7/2,1+ 6/2)
(10/2,7/2)
(5,3.5)

Now, let's plot the midpoint of BC at (5,3.5) and name it as K. If we draw a segment from K to vertex A, we will have the median of BC.

Median of CA

One last time, we will follow the same procedure — this time using the coordinates of A and C.

(x_1+x_2/2,y_1+y_2/2)
â–¼
Substitute coordinates and evaluate
(- 1+ 7/2,11+ 6/2)
(6/2,17/2)
(3,8.5)

Let's name this midpoint L and add it to the diagram. The segment that connects B and L is a median of AC.

Coordinates of the Midpoint

As we can see on our diagram, the medians intersect at point (3,6). These are the coordinates of the centroid of â–³ ABC.