McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012
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McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012 View details
2. Medians and Altitudes of Triangles
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Exercise 18 Page 422

Use the fact that BD is perpendicular to CA, and CD and DA are congruent segments.

Perpendicular bisector.

Practice makes perfect
In this exercise we want to identify segment BD as an altitude, median or perpendicular bisector. Let's start by recalling the definitions of these three concepts.
Name Definition
Altitude An altitude is a segment from a vertex to the line containing the opposite side and perpendicular to the line containing that side.
Median A median of a triangle is a segment with endpoints being a vertex of a triangle and the midpoint of the opposite side.
Perpendicular Bisector A perpendicular bisector is a segment bisector that is also perpendicular to this segment.

Now let's consider the triangle marked in the picture.

As we can see, CD and DA are congruent segments, so D is a midpoint of CA. Also, BD is perpendicular to opposite of B, side CA. Therefore, BD is a perpendicular bisector, because it connects a vertex of a triangle with the midpoint of the opposite side and also is perpendicular to the opposite side.