Today we started off class looking to solve the “hiker question:”

A hiker is headed back to her tent after a long day's hike, but she needs to swing by the river on her
way to refill her water bottles. She is on the same side of the river as her tent. What is the shortest
path she can take to her tent?
Solution:
In order to solve this question we decided to assume that the river was
straight, and we drew this:

We know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight

line. However, before the hiker can go back to her tent, she must
first go past the river. We then decided that we wanted to “reflect”
the tent over the river so the segment TT’ is perpendicular to the river
and the river bisects TT’.

Then from the point R where HT’ intersects the river the hiker
would travel to her tent, so her path would be HR then RT.
 In order to prove that HR, RT is the shortest path possible, we need to show that RT ≅ RT’:
• By construction we know that CT ≅ CT’, and we know that ∡T’CR ≅ ∡TCR. We also know
that CR is congruent to itself.
• Therefore, by SAS, we can state that △RCT ≅ △RCT’.
• This implies that RT ≅ RT’.

Using the same proof, we can show that no matter where R is we will have congruent triangles.

In order to conclude this proof, we need to show that R is not on the segment HT’, the path from HR to
RT will not be the shortest path possible:
• If R is not on the segment HT’ then there exists a triangle HRT, and by triangle inequality, we
know that the measure of segment HT’ will be shorter than the combined measures of segments
HR and RT’.

From this problem we noticed that any point on the River will be equidistant from T and T’ because the
river is a perpendicular bisector of TT’. We were then able to come up with a theorem:
If a line l is a perpendicular bisector to segment AA’, any point on l will be
equidistant from A and A’.
We then wondered if the converse: If a point is equally distant from two points A and B,
then it lies on the perpendicular bisector of AB was true.

• Let P be a point such that PA ≅ PB.

• Therefore △PAB is and isosceles triangle.
• From this we know that ∡A ≅ ∡B.
• If we bisect ∡P with PC, PC will intersect AB at some point D
and PD is congruent to itself.
• By ASA, we can conclude that △PDB ≅ △PDA.
• Hence BD ≅ AD and ∡PDB ≅ ∡PDA.
• We now know that D is the midpoint of AB, we just need to
show that ∡PDA is a right angle.
o ∡PDB ≅ ∡PDA and are supplements. Thus, by
definition, they are both right angles.
• We can now say that P is on the perpendicular bisector to
AB.
It was also pointed out that we could finish this proof in another way:
• Let P be a point such that PA ≅ PB.
• Therefore △PAB is and isosceles triangle.
• From this we know that ∡A ≅ ∡B.
• Construct M as the midpoint of segment AB. (There will only be
one midpoint from our Congruence axioms).
• This means that AM ≅ BM.
• By SAS we can conclude than △PMB ≅ △PMA.
• ∡PMB ≅ ∡MDA and are supplements which shows that PM is a
perpendicular bisector to AB.
• From this proof we also gather PM is the angle bisector of
∡APB because we know that ∡APM ≅ ∡BPM.

We discussed that this line segment (MP) is the median of the

triangle, the perpendicular bisector, the angle bisector (of ∡APB,
and the altitude of the triangle.

The next problem that we discussed was the other hiker problem:
A hiker is headed back to her tent after a long day's hike, but she needs to swing by the river on her
way to refill her water bottles. She is really thirsty and wants to get to the river as fast as possible.
What is the shortest path she can take to the river?

We decided that the correct answer that the hiker should

follow a perpendicular line to the river from where she is
currently.

We know that this will be the shortest path for the hiker
to take because of the Pythagorean Theorem which
states:
In a right triangle, a2 + b2 = c2 where c is the
hypotenuse, or the side opposite the right angle.

In our picture, this would mean that DH would be c in

any triangle that was formed using the hiker, C, and the
any other point D on the river. From the Pythagorean
Theorem, we can conclude that CH will always be shorter than
DH.
Now, we must prove the Pythagorean Theorem. However, in most proofs of the theorem, we need to
know some things about area, so we set out to prove three propositions.

First we need our five axioms about area:

• A1: The area of any polygonal regions is a unique positive number.
• A2: The area of any point or line segment is 0.
• A3: Congruent polygonal regions have the same area.
• A4: Area is additive. (If we subdivide a figure into non-overlapping parts, or parts that share
segments or points, then its area is the sum of the areas of its parts.)
• A5: A square of length a units has an area of a2 square units.

Our first theorem states:

The area of a rectangle with sides a and b is ab.

Without loss of generality, we may assume that b > a.

We discovered that subdividing our rectangle wouldn’t
really help us so we decided by adding a segment with
length b to the end of b and a segment with length a to
the end of b we were able to create a square with side
lengths equal to a + b.

From here we are able to subdivide this square into two

rectangles, and two squares, one with equal to area a2
and one with area equal to b2. We’ll call the area of
each of the two rectangles “C.” The total area of the
large square is equal to (a + b)2. This quantity is equal
to the sums of the four figures inside of the square, or a2
+ b2 + 2C. Algebraically we can conclude that C, or the
area of the original rectangle is equal to ab.

a2
C

(a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2 = a2 + b2 + 2C
2ab = 2C
C = ab

C
b2
The last thing we worked on today was:
The area of a parallelogram is the product of the length of a base and the corresponding height.

So far our proof is based on the idea that △ADF ≅ △BEG, so by moving the corresponding sides of
that triangle we have a rectangle FDEG whose area should equal to the area of parallelogram ADEB.
However, we still need to prove that A, B, and G are collinear so our proof is complete.

To do this I suggest that we construct G such that A, B, and G are collinear and AF ≅ BG. We can then
create segment EG which will be congruent to DF. From there we can prove that the area of the
parallelogram is equal to the area of the rectangle.