Suppose is a complex number with positive imaginary part, with real part greater than , and with . In the complex plane, the four values , , , and are the vertices of a quadrilateral with area . What is the imaginary part of ?
, 2024
Pick one
Solution
Let be the argument of . Because and the real part of is greater than , it follows that is less than . This ensures that the imaginary parts of and are positive and all the vertices of the quadrilateral other than lie in the upper half-plane. Thus the area of the quadrilateral is the sum of the areas of the triangle with vertices , , and and the triangle with vertices , , and . See the figure.

Because the area of a triangle with side lengths and with included angle is , the area of the quadrilateral must be
It follows that , and the imaginary part of is .
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