P picked uniformly at random inside an equilateral triangle, is closer to the centroid than to its sides?
What is the probability (to 3 decimal places) that a point
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The same :)
How is this even discrete mathematics tho
The points of the triangle that are at the same distance from the centroid and each side must lie on a parabola . The guitar-pluck-like shape formed by the intersection of the three parabolas contains all the points that are closer to the centroid than to its sides. Let's call S the area of this region and T , the area of the triangle. The probability we are looking for is p = T S . By symmetry, this ratio can be obtained by calculating the areas of the regions O P Q and O A B .
Consider a triangle of side 1 and write all coordinates with respect to A . The position of its centroid is ( 0 , 6 3 ) and the vertex of the parabola lies at ( 0 , 1 2 3 ) .
The equations of line O B and parabola P Q are:
line O B : y parabola: y = = 6 3 ( 1 − 2 x ) 3 ( x 2 + 1 2 1 )
These two curves intersect at x = 6 1 .
The area O P Q is given by the integral ∫ 0 6 1 [ 6 3 ( 1 − 2 x ) − 3 ( x 2 + 1 2 1 ) ] d x = 6 4 8 5 3
and the area of triangle O A B is 2 4 3 .
Finally, p = area O A B area O P Q = 2 7 5
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