Pearson Geometry Common Core, 2011
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Pearson Geometry Common Core, 2011 View details
4. Medians and Altitudes
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Exercise 14 Page 313

The orthocenter describes the point of concurrency for the lines containing the altitudes of a triangle.

(4,0)

Practice makes perfect

We want to determine where the orthocenter lies and then find its exact location. Let's begin by drawing the triangle using the given coordinates.

Notice that AB is horizontal and BC is vertical. This means that ∠ B is a right angle. Therefore, △ ABC is an right triangle and the orthocenter P lies exactly on the vertex of its right angle, point B. The coordinates for the orthocenter are (4,0).