Suppose is a triangle sitting (stationary) in .
When is projected orthogonally onto the -, - and -planes, the respective areas of these projections, ("shadows", if you will), in these planes are and units .
What is the area of , in units ?
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I'll give a general solution for respective projected areas A , B and C first.
Let u and v be vectors representing (any) two sides of T in both direction and magnitude. The area of T is then one half the magnitude of the vector cross-product of these two vectors, i.e., ( 2 1 ) ∣ u × v ∣ .
With i , j , k being the standard unit vectors, we are thus given that
(i) ( 2 1 ) ∣ ( u × v ) ⋅ k ∣ = A ,
(ii) ( 2 1 ) ∣ ( u × v ) ⋅ j ∣ = B , and
(iii) ( 2 1 ) ∣ ( u × v ) ⋅ i ∣ = C .
By Pythagoras we then have that ( 2 1 ) ∣ u × v ∣ = A 2 + B 2 + C 2 .
In this case, then, the area of T is 4 + 3 6 + 8 1 = 1 1 .