Triangles - Equilateral, Isosceles and Scalene

A triangle has three sides and three angles The three angles always add to 180

Equilateral, Isosceles and Scalene

There are three special names given to triangles that tell how many sides (or angles) are equal. There can be 3, 2 or no equal sides/angles:

Equilateral Triangle
Three equal sides Three equal angles, always 60

Isosceles Triangle
Two equal sides Two equal angles

Scalene Triangle
No equal sides No equal angles

What Type of Angle?

Triangles can also have names that tell you what type of angle is inside:

Acute Triangle
All angles are less than 90

Right Triangle
Has a right angle (90)

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Triangles - Equilateral, Isosceles and Scalene

Obtuse Triangle
Has an angle more than 90

Combining the Names

Sometimes a triangle will have two names, for example:

Right Isosceles Triangle

Has a right angle (90), and also two equal angles Can you guess what the equal angles are?

Area

The area is half of the base times height. "b" is the distance along the base "h" is the height (measured at right angles to the base)

Area = bh
The formula works for all triangles. Another way of writing the formula is bh/2

Example: What is the area of this triangle?

Height = h = 12 Base = b = 20 Area = bh/2 = 20 12 / 2 = 120

Just make sure that the "h" is measured at right angles to the "b".

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Triangles - Equilateral, Isosceles and Scalene

Why is the Area "Half of bh"?

Imagine you "doubled" the triangle (flip it around one of the upper edges) to make a square-like shape (it would be a "parallelogram" actually), THEN the whole area would be bh (that would be for both triangles, so just one is bh), like this:

By slicing the new triangle and moving the sliced part to the other side you get a simple rectangle, whose area is bh.

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