The points and are the vertices of a triangle. For how many real values of is the triangle a right triangle?
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.
Let the vertices of the triangle formed be (3, 7), (6, 2), and (2, k).
Case 1: (3, 7) is the right angled vertex. Form the vectors that corresponding to the legs of the right triangle: ⟨ 3 , − 5 ⟩ and ⟨ − 1 , k − 7 ⟩ . Their dot product must be zero, so this gives
− 3 − 5 ( k − 7 ) = 0 ⟶ k = 3 2 / 5
Case 2: (6, 2) is the right angled vertex. Form the vectors that corresponding to the legs of the right triangle: ⟨ − 3 , 5 ⟩ and ⟨ − 4 , k − 2 ⟩ . Again, the dot product must be zero, so this gives
1 2 + 5 ( k − 2 ) = 0 ⟶ k = − 2 / 5
Case 3: (2, k) is the right angled vertex. Form the vectors that corresponding to the legs of the right triangle: ⟨ 1 , 7 − k ⟩ and ⟨ 4 , 2 − k ⟩ . Setting the dot product equal to zero yields
4 + ( 7 − k ) ( 2 − k ) = 0 ⟶ k = 3 , k = 6
This is gives 4 distinct values of k for which we could have a right triangle.