Problem:
How many noncongruent triangles are there with one side of length , one side of length , and one angle?
Solution
Solution:
There are possible vertices that can have an angle of , we will name them. Call the vertex where the sides of length and meet , denote the vertex where doesn't meet by , and the final vertex, which meets but not , we denote by .
The law of cosines states that if we have a triangle, then we have the equation where is the angle between and . But so this becomes .
We then try satisfying this equation for the possible vertices and find that, for the equation reads so that .
For we find that or rather ; this is a quadratic, solving we find that it has two roots , but since only one of these roots is positive.
We can also see that this isn't congruent to the other triangle we had, as for both the triangles the shortest side has length , and so if they were congruent the lengths of all sides would need to be equal, but and since clearly and so the triangles aren't congruent.
If we try applying the law of cosines to however, we get the equation which we can rewrite as which has no real solutions, as the discriminant is negative.
Thus, cannot be , and there are exactly two noncongruent triangles with side lengths and with an angle being .