A triangle has vertices at #A(a,b )#, #C(c,d)#, and #O(0,0)#. What are the endpoints and length of the perpendicular bisector of AC ?
2 Answers
Hey, this got featured before it was really done. It's still not done.
Explanation:
This is another in my series where I generalize one of these old questions.
"The triangle's perpendicular bisectors" is not a term we hear that often. Each side has a perpendicular bisector, the perpendicular through the midpoint. It will occasionally intersect the opposite vertex (in which case it's the altitude of an isosceles triangle) but usually it will intersect exactly one of the other sides.
I've rewritten the question to put one vertex at the origin and to just ask for the perpendicular bisector of the opposite side.
The sides of the triangle are given parametrically as
The perpendicular family to
That meets
Two equations in two unknowns.
We're more interested in
The roles aren't quite symmetrical so we repeat the process for the meet of the bisector and
Yes I know this is getting long Socratic. It's an involved problem.
The numerators are the same in
~~~~~~~
We want to solve
Let's first assume
We're assuming
What about when
How about
For
Unless
Still not there.
~~~~~~~~~
We need to show the denominators have opposite signs.
~ ~~~~~~
The triangle inequality says
The dot product and the sum of squares have a close relationship. We expand
We still haven't shown we pass through at most one side or the vertex. It remains to show
Still more to do.
If
If
If
Explanation:
My other answer got featured before I finished it. I'm looking for a simpler way that I can actually finish.
Let's start with a simpler problem. Triangle OPI, coordinates
Solution: The foot of the bisector is the midpoint of
If
If
If
That seems simple enough. We want to map
The general rotation, scaling, translation is
We mapped O to P. Unknowns
Let
The remaining difficult issue is the inverse mapping so we can get the other endpoints
The almost inverse is
Transforming our original solution,
If
If
If