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Geometry Difficulty 3.5 AMC 10/12 Find the answer United States

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 aa, bb, and hh 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 12bh\frac{1}{2} b h, which by the stated condition equals 14a2\frac{1}{4} a^2. The area is also 12a2sinθ\frac{1}{2} a^2 \sin \theta, where θ\theta is the vertex angle. Equating these expressions shows that sinθ=12\sin \theta = \frac{1}{2}. Because the triangle is obtuse, this implies that θ=150\theta = 150^{\circ}.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.