This morning I asked my Maths class to find the areas of two right-angled triangles. Lottie-Lu’s hand shot up immediately, so I asked her the first one.
“24,” she announced.
She was right (for a change!) and I made the mistake of asking her how she did it.
“Easy. Just add all the sides together.”
I was about to correct her and say it was just a coincidence, when I noticed that her method worked on my second triangle as well!
Lottie-Lu must have caught my frustrated thoughts. “Well, it works, doesn’t it?” she chirped.
What were the side lengths of the two triangles I had drawn on the board this morning? They were all whole numbers.
Answer
- 6-8-10 (Area = 6×8/2 = 24)
- 5-12-13 (Area = 5×12/2 = 30)
