Hard at first sight

Geometry Level pending

D and E are points on side AB and AC of a triangle ABC such that D E B C DE\parallel BC\quad and divides triangle ABC into two parts, equal in area.

Find B D A B \frac{BD}{AB} .

Submit your answer upto 3 places of decimal.


The answer is 0.292.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

2 solutions

Marta Reece
Mar 11, 2017

Since only areas and ratios within the same line are in play, result obtained for one triangle will apply to all triangles obtainable from it by linear transformation, that is to all triangles. So I picked a right triangle with bottom side 1, as shown above.

Triangles A E D AED and A C B ACB are similar, so C B 1 = E D A D = h x \frac{CB}{1}=\frac{ED}{AD}=\frac{h}{x} .

Area of triangle A E D = 1 2 x h AED=\frac{1}{2}xh . Area of triangle A B C = 1 2 h x ABC=\frac{1}{2}\frac{h}{x} .

Area of triangle A C B ACB should be twice as big as area of triangle A E D AED .

1 2 x h × 2 = 1 2 h x \frac{1}{2}xh\times2=\frac{1}{2}\frac{h}{x} .

This gives us x = 1 2 x=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}

B D 1 = 1 x = 1 1 2 0.293 \frac{BD}{1}=1-x=1-\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\approx0.293

Viki Zeta
Sep 13, 2016

D E B C Δ A D E Δ A B C (AA Similarity) ar(ABC) ar(ADE) = ( A B A D ) 2 ar(ABC) 2 ar(ADE) = ( A B A D ) 2 (Since, ar(ADE) = ar(DECB) = 2ar(ABC)) 1 2 = ( A B A D ) 2 1 2 = A B A D 2 = A D A B 2 = A D A B 1 2 = 1 A D A B 1 2 2 = A B A D A B D B A B = 2 2 2 = 0.293 DE || BC \\ \Delta ADE \sim \Delta ABC \text{ (AA Similarity)} \\ \dfrac{\text{ar(ABC)}}{\text{ar(ADE)}} = (\dfrac{AB}{AD})^2 \\ \dfrac{\text{ar(ABC)}}{2\text{ar(ADE)}} = (\dfrac{AB}{AD})^2 \text{ (Since, ar(ADE) = ar(DECB) = 2ar(ABC))} \\ \dfrac{1}{2} = (\dfrac{AB}{AD})^2 \\ \dfrac{1}{\sqrt[]{2}} = \dfrac{AB}{AD} \\ \sqrt[]{2} = \dfrac{AD}{AB} \\ -\sqrt[]{2} = -\dfrac{AD}{AB} \\ 1 - \sqrt[]{2} = 1 - \dfrac{AD}{AB} \\ 1 - \dfrac{\sqrt[]{2}}{2} = \dfrac{AB - AD}{AB} \\ \dfrac{DB}{AB} = \dfrac{2 - \sqrt[]{2}}{2} = 0.293\\

Here is the same question posted by me ealier

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...