find the value of k for so that the area of the triangle with vertices (1,-1),(-4,2k) and (-k,-5)is 24 square units.
Answers
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Answer:
There are two values of k that meet the requirement: k = 3 and k = -4.5
Step-by-step explanation:
Without doing any maths, you can do this by putting the three points into Geogebra. For the two points depending on k, make a slider for the k variable. When you make a triangle with the polygon tool, selecting the three points, Geogebra shows the area of that triangle. Now just slide through different values of k and see which ones give the necessary area. See the attachments.
Otherwise, there is a nice little rule involving a 3x3 determinant for the area of a triangle in terms of the coordinates of the vertices:
>> Write 1's down the first column, then in the 6 remaining spaces, put in the coordinates of the points (x coordinates down 2nd column and y coordinates down the 3rd column). The determinant's value is ±2 times the area of the triangle.
Using this rule, we get that plus or minus double the area is given by
det ( 1, 1, -1 ; 1, -4, 2k ; 1, -k -5 ) = 2k² + 3k + 21,
so this has to be equal to either -48 or 48 (that's plus or minus double the area).
When we put -48, there are no solutions to this quadratic (the discriminant is 3² - (4)(2)(69), and this is negative).
When we put 48, the quadratic is
2k² + 3k + 21 = 48
=> 2k² + 3k - 27 = 0
=> (2k + 9)(k - 3) = 0
=> k = 3 or k = -4.5.