Question

The base of a triangle exceeds the height by 7 centimeters. If the area is 400 square centimeters, find the length of the base and the height of the triangle.

Answer 1

Answer:

Base = 32 cm

Height = 25 cm

Step-by-step explanation:

Area of a triangle can be calculated as:

$Area = \frac{1}{2}\times Base \times Height$

We are given that the base of triangle exceeds the height by 7 cm. This can be expressed in an equation form as:

Base = Height + 7

Lets use B to represent base and H to represent height

B = H + 7

The equation of area can be stated as:

$Area=\frac{1}{2}bh\\\\ Area=\frac{1}{2}(h+7)(h)\\\\ 400=\frac{1}{2}h(h+7)\\\\ 800=h^{2}+7h\\\\ h^{2}+7h-800=0$

This is a quadratic equation which can be solved using a quadratic equation as shown below:

$h=\frac{-7+-\sqrt{49-4(1)(-800)} }{2(1)} \\\\ h=\frac{-7+-57}{2}\\\\h=-32,25$

Since the height cannot be negative, we'll consider the positive value only i.e height is equal to 25 cm.

Therefore, the length of base will be 25 + 7 = 32 cm.