Fundamental concepts of Triangles

Two concepts of triangles and their applications.

1. Sides of triangles
2. Types of triangles

Sides of a triangle
Triangle is as a two-dimensional geometrical figure bounded by three sides. If we
consider a triangle ABC and its corresponding sides to be a, b, and c, then
conventionally side a is considered to be a side opposite to angle A. Similarly, side B
and sides are supposed to be the side opposite to angle Band angle C

respectively.

Rules on sides of a triangle

 Sum of any two sides of a triangle is always greater than the third side, i.e., a+b>c,
b+c>a and c+a>b.
 The absolute difference of any two sides of a triangle is always less than the third side.
i.e., a>b-c, b>c-a and c>a-b

If we are given three sides of a triangle, then all the above three conditions must follow
for the triangle to be possible. However, rather than checking all the three condition if
we can check the condition that the sum of the two smaller sides is greater than the
largest side, then the rest of the two conditions are automatically followed.

For example, let us assume that side c is the largest side of a triangle having three
sides a, b, and c. So, if a+b>c, then the rest of the other two condition will automatically
follow; we don’t need to check them.
Throughout this article wherever required, I’ll assume that side ‘c’ is the largest side of a
triangle.
As I mentioned in the introduction, even in this concept, the questions have appeared in
various exams. Let us take one such problem.
Question: How many non congruent triangles are possible such that their sides are
integers and the perimeter is equal to 14.
Solution:
Let us assume the sides of the triangle to be a, b, and c.
As per the question, a + b + c = 14, and a, b, and c have to be an integer.
Now, there are two ways of solving the question. One method is to find all the possible
combination of sides such that the triangle is possible using the sides. The second
method is to apply the shortcut trick to get the answer directly.
Let us discuss both the ways.
Normal method
The largest side of the triangle cannot be 7 or more than 7, otherwise, the sum of the
other two sides will be equal to or less than the third side (largest side).
Therefore, the maximum length of any side has to be 6 or none of the sides will be more
than 6.
Using the above constraint, we will be making the combinations for sides which have
been given in the table below:

a b c

2 6 6

3 5 6

4 4 6

4 5 5

Hence, we can say that there are four noncongruent triangles.

Shortcut tricks:
Number of non congruent triangles with integral sides and perimeter say
‘n’, is given by the following formula:
  If ‘n’ is even, the number of triangles is equal to the nearest
integer of [n248]
 If ‘n’ is odd, the number of triangles is equal to the nearest integer
of [(n+3)248]

In the above question, n= 14, that is even. Therefore, by applying the formula, we get
[14248]=19648=4.08
The integer nearest to 4.08 is 4. Hence, the number of triangles = 4.
Important: Please do not get confused by the symbol [.] with greatest integer
function. Here we are not finding the greatest integer function. If we would have got
4.78 on calculation, then the nearest integer of 4.78 would have been 5. So, the answer
would have been 5 whereas, if we find the greatest integer of [4.78] it will still be 4.

Types of Triangles
Categories of a triangle based on its sides:

 Scalene: Triangles whose all three sides are different.

 Isosceles: Triangles whose two sides are equal.
 Equilateral: Triangles whose all three sides are equal

Note: All equilateral triangles are also isosceles triangles

Triangle can also be categorized based on the interior angles.

 Acute: Triangles whose all three interior angles are less than 90 degrees.
 Right: Triangles which have precisely one angle equal to 90 degrees.
 Obtuse: Triangles which have exactly one angle greater than 90 degrees.

There is another significant relationship between the sides of the triangle and types of
the triangle.
Consider, a, b, and c to be three sides of a triangle and say c is the largest side, then

 If a2+b2>c2, then it is acute Triangle

 If a2+b2=c2, then it is right Triangle.
 If a2+b2<c2, then it is obtuse Triangle.

Let us take two examples on the concepts we just learned.

Solved questions on concepts of the triangle
Question: Consider an obtuse triangle with sides 8cm, 15cm & x cm. If x is an integer,
how many such triangles are possible?
Solution:
For a triangle to be possible the sum of any two sides must be greater than the third
side, and the difference of any two sides must be less than the third side.
Assume that the two sides to be 8 and 15 and the third side to be x.
Therefore, 15-8 < x < 15+8.
Or, 7 < x < 23.
So, the possible values of x for which the triangle is possible are integers from 8 to 22
including both.
But, we have to find how many of them are obtuse.
Therefore, we will be applying the other concept for an obtuse triangle, and that is the
sum of the squares of the two smaller sides is always less than the square of the third
side.
i.e. a2+b2<c2.
Case I: x is the largest side.
x2>82+152
⇒x2>289⇒x>17
Or, x > 17, which means x = 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, i.e., 5 values
Case II: 15 is the largest side.
152>x2+82
=> x < 13, which means x = 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. i.e., 5 values
Therefore, the total number of obtuse triangle possible is 10.

Some important properties of triangles

 Sum of the three interior angles is 1800

 The measure of an exterior angle is equal to the sum of the measures of two remote
interior angles.
 Sum of the three exterior angles is 3600
 The side opposite to the greatest angle is the longest, and the side opposite to the
smallest angle is the shortest.

The formula for the area of triangles can be categorized as:

  General: These formulas are applicable for all types of triangles.
 Specific: These formulas are applied only to a specific kind of triangle.

General Formulas to calculate the area of a triangle

Let us learn all general formulas to find the area of a triangle.

1. Area of a triangle when the base of the triangle and the corresponding height is given:

This is the most frequently used formula.

Area of the triangle= 12×base×height

Question: Euclid has a triangle in mind, its longest side has length 20 and another of its
sides has length 10. Its area is 80. What is the exact length of its third side? [CAT 2001]

a. 260−−−√
b. 250−−−√
c. 240−−−√
d. 270−−−√
Solution:

Let the perpendicular on the longest side from the other vertices be h.
Therefore, 12×20×h=80 i.e., h = 8
The perpendicular has two triangles on its two sides. On its left, there is one with a
hypotenuse of 10. If the two sides are 10 and 8, the third one must be 6.
The base of the other triangle is 20 – 6 = 14
The two sides being 8 and 14, the hypotenuse must be 142−82−−−−−−−√=260−−−√
Hence, the correct answer is option (a)

2. When all the three sides of the triangle are known

Area of the triangle= (s–a)(s–b)(s–c)−−−−−−−−−−−−−√ , where s=a+b+c2is the semi

perimeter of the triangle. This is also known as Heron’s formula.
Note: This formula is very calculation intensive. We deliberately try to avoid using this
formula unless we are left with no other options.

3. When a circle is inscribed inside a triangle

This is a very important case for any competitive exam. Many questions have appeared
in the exams which can be solved by applying this direct formula. It is also worthwhile to
go through the derivation of this formula, as the method of derivation at times is used to
solve some of the geometry questions.
Area of the triangle=s×r, where s is the semiperimeter of the triangle and r, is the radius
if the inscribed circle.
Question: Find the in-radius of a triangle with side lengths 13, 14, and 15 cms.

Solution:
Semi perimeter (s) = (13+14+15)/2 = 21.
Area of the triangle by using Heron’s formula = 21×8×7×6−−−−−−−−−−−√=84
Also, the area = rxs = 84
Or, rx21=84 hence, in-radius = 4.
Note: The inscribed circle is called in-circle, and its radius is called in-radius.

4. When a triangle is inscribed inside a circle

Area of the triangle= abc4R, where R is the radius of the circle

Note: The circle is called circum-circle, and the radius R is called circum-radius

5. When two sides and an including angle is known

Area of the triangle = 12absinθ where, a and b are the sides and θ is the angles
between them.
Question: The internal bisector of an angle A in a triangle ABC meets the side BC at point D.
AB = 4, AC = 3 and A = 600. Then what is the length of the bisector AD? [CAT 2002]

a. 123–√/7
b. 1213−−√/7
c. 413−−√/7
d. 43–√/7
Solution:
In a triangle with sides a and b and the included angle, the area is given by
Area = ab(sinC)/2

(1)+(2)=(3)
i.e., AD=(32+42)=12×3√2
⇒AD=123√7
Hence, option (a)
There are many other general formulae to calculate the area. However, those formulas
require from higher concepts of trigonometry. We can safely ignore them for CAT
exam.

The specific formula for the area of a triangle

 Area of equilateral triangle = 3√2a2 , where ‘a’ is the side of the equilateral triangle.
  Area of isosceles triangle = 12×a×b2–a24−−−−−√

Where b is the measure of the equal sides of an isosceles triangle and a is the base of
the isosceles triangle.

Pythagoras Theorem: We all know that if a, b, and c, are the sides of a right
triangle, where ‘c’ is the largest side or the hypotenuse of a right triangle, then as per
the Pythagoras Theorem we have the following relation:

Pythagorean Triplets are the set of integers which satisfy the property that they are the
sides of a right angle triangle. In other words, the three integers satisfy Pythagoras
theorem.
Triangle with side 3, 4 and 5 is the smallest right triangle which has all three sides and
integer. So, we can say that (3, 4, 5) is one of the triplets. There exist infinite such
triplets. Below is the list of triplets which commonly appear in competitive exams like
CAT.
List of Pythagorean Triplets

Important: If a, b, c is a Pythagorean triplet, then ka, kb, kc will also form a Pythagorean triplet;
where k is any positive integer. For example, (3, 4, 5) is a triplet, then (6,8,10),
(9,12,15),(12,16,20) etc. will also be triplets.

It is advisable that a student must learn these triplets to use them effectively. At least
the first five should be at your fingertips. However, there is a method to generate triplet
if we know the smallest side of the triplet. Let us understand the method of generating
these triplets

Methods to generate Pythagorean Triplets

There are two different methods of generating triplets based on whether the smallest
side is odd or even.

If the smallest side is ODD

We follow the following steps to generate the other two sides of the integer if the
smallest side (odd) is known:
Step 1: Take the square of the sides. And let this square be x.
Step 2: Split the number x into two parts such that the difference between them is 1,

i.e., and . These two parts will be the other two sides of the triplets.
Let’s take an example to understand the steps:
Let us generate the triplets 3, 4, and 5 using these steps.
Step 1: Squaring 3, we get 9.
Step 2: Splitting 9 into two parts such that their difference between them is 1, so, the
parts would be 4 and 5 respectively.
Here we can see that the other two sides are 4 and 5.
If the smallest side is EVEN
The following steps are followed to generate triplets if the smallest side is even. Let the
smallest side be x.

Step 1: Calculate

Step 2: the two sides would be , and

Let us also understand the application with the help of an example.
We would generate the other two sides of a right angle triangle whose smallest size is
8.
Step 1: calculating (8/2)2=16
Step 2: the required sides would be (16-1=15) and (16+1=17)
Important: (20, 21, 29) is also a Pythagorean Triplet, though it cannot be generated
using the above method.
We can observe that these methods are straightforward and required only two steps.

Pythagorean Triplets based CAT problems

Question: A ladder leans against a vertical wall. The top of the ladder is 8 m above the ground.
When the bottom of the ladder is moved 2 m farther away from the wall, the top of the ladder
rests against the foot of the wall. What is the length of the ladder? [ CAT 2001 ]

Explanation:

The question can be visualized as shown above. On dragging the foot of the latter (point
C) 2 m away from point B, point A coincides with point B.
Hence, we can say that AC = BC + 2.
Further, if we observe closely, then we find that the Pythagorean triplet with one of the
side 8 is (8, 15, 17). Here, if we consider AB=8, BC =15, and AC=17, then the values
perfectly agrees with the condition. Therefore, the length of the ladder is 17 m.
Question: The length of a ladder is precisely equal to the height of the wall it is resting against.
If the lower end of the ladder is kept on a stool of length 3m and the stool is kept 9 m away from
the wall, and the upper end of the ladder coincides with the tip of the wall. Then, the height of
the wall is: [ CAT 1995 ]

Explanation:

Refer to the figure above. From the conditions given in the question, it is clear that AB
(wall) = AE (ladder) where BC=DE. So, we have right triangle ADE with sides x, 9, and
x+3.
From here we have two options, one is to apply Pythagoras theorem and get the value
of x, the other is to figure out triplet which fits the condition.
Here one of the sides is 9. So, the possible triplets could be (9, 40, 41) and (9, 12, 15).
Clearly, (9, 40, 41) can be discarded because if we take x =40 then x+3 ≠ 41.
Hence, the only possibility is (9, 12, 15). Here we can see that if we consider x =12,
then x+3 = 15 fits with the condition.
Therefore, the answer to this question is 15 m.
Question: Euclid has a triangle in mind. Its longest side has length 20, and another of its sides
has length 10. Its area is 80. What is the exact length of its third side? [ CAT 2001 ]

Explanation:
From the given conditions, we can draw a rough diagram of the triangle as provided
below:
It is interesting to observe here is that the area of the triangle is 80 and if we consider
side with length 20 as the base of the triangle, then we will get the height too as an
integer, i.e.,

Refer to the diagram below, its clear that if we apply Pythagoras theorem, we
get