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| Math Central | Quandaries & Queries |
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Question from Gina, a parent: I am trying to help my daughter with this, but I am very weak in Math.Please help! Find slopes of the medians of a triangle whose vertices are P(1,3), Q(3,5), and R(6,2). |
Hi Gina.
The median of a triangle is a line segment from a vertex to the midpoint of the opposite side. So you have two steps involved in this question:
- Find the midpoints of the sides. For example, the midpoint of P and Q is (xM, yM) = ( (1 + 3)/2, (3 + 5)/2 ) which is (2, 4).
- Then find the slope of the line between the opposite vertex and each midpoint. For example, the median from R has slope (yR - yM) / (xR - xM) = (2 - 4) / (6 - 4) = -2 / 2 = -1.
Do this for the other two medians as well.
Hope this helps,
Stephen La Rocque.
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