The product of the lengths of the two congruent sides of an obtuse isosceles triangle is equal to the product of the base and twice the triangle's height to the base. What is the measure, in degrees, of the vertex angle of this triangle?
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Solution
Let , , and be the length of the congruent sides, the base, and the height to the base of the obtuse isosceles triangle, respectively. Then the area of the triangle is , which by the stated condition equals . The area is also , where is the vertex angle. Equating these expressions shows that . Because the triangle is obtuse, this implies that .
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