Centroid of half a pentagon - Number Crunching

Geometry Level 2

Shown in the figure above is a unit regular pentagon. It is divided into two halves by a vertical line that passes through the midpoint of the base (point O O ), which is the origin of the coordinate system. Find the coordinates of the centroid G ( x , y ) G(x, y) of the right half of the pentagon (shaded), and report the value of 3 x + 4 y 3x + 4y .


The answer is 3.7.

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1 solution

Hosam Hajjir
Sep 17, 2020

We have the following coordinates for points B , C , D B, C, D :

B = ( 1 2 , 0 ) B = ( \dfrac{1}{2}, 0 )

C = ( 1 2 + cos 7 2 , sin 7 2 ) C = ( \dfrac{1}{2} + \cos 72^{\circ} , \sin 72^{\circ} )

D = ( 0 , sin 7 2 + sin 7 2 + 18 0 10 8 ) = ( 0 , sin 7 2 + sin 3 6 ) D = ( 0 , \sin 72^{\circ} + \sin 72^{\circ} + 180^{\circ} - 108^{\circ} ) = (0, \sin 72^{\circ} + \sin 36^{\circ})

We'll segment the area of half the pentagon into two triangles, O B C \triangle OBC and O C D \triangle OCD ,

The centroid of O B C \triangle OBC is given by

G 1 = ( 1 3 ) ( O + B + C ) G_1 = (\dfrac{1}{3}) ( O + B + C )

And, the centroid of O C D \triangle OCD is given by

G 2 = ( 1 3 ) ( O + C + D ) G_2 = (\dfrac{1}{3}) (O + C + D )

The overall centroid is given by

G = [ O B C ] G 1 + [ O C D ] G 2 [ O B C ] + [ O C D ] G = \dfrac{ [OBC] G_1 + [OCD] G_2 }{[OBC]+[OCD] }

where, [ O B C ] [OBC] is the area of O B C \triangle OBC . [ O B C ] = 1 2 B x C y [OBC] = \dfrac{1}{2} B_x C_y , and [ O C D ] [OCD] is the area of O C D \triangle OCD . [ O C D ] = 1 2 C x D y [OCD] = \dfrac{1}{2} C_x D_y

Crunching the numbers above, we get G x = 0.315737865 , G y = 0.68819096 G_x = 0.315737865, G_y = 0.68819096 , so that 3 G x + 4 G y = 3.699977436 3.7 3 G_x + 4 G_y = 3.699977436 \approx 3.7

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