Can the area of triangle A be calculated by
(2-1)*3 / 2
height*base / 2

Professor has this as an answer for another question and I think it's wrong, but I may be stupid.
But he's an environmental professor so idk

Why wouldn't it be? Area equals base times height over 2. The height in A is equal to 3.

shouldnt the base be the hypotenuse of triangle B?

No, the height of each triangle is 3. It's measured at a right angle to the base.

This post was edited by Amaston on Jul 5 2017 10:34pm

This is true. It's a bit of an oddity until you realize that the "height" of an obtuse triangle may not be inside the triangle.

As a sanity check, consider this:
Area of A+B = 0.5 (2) (3) = 3
Area of B = 0.5 (1) (3) = 1.5
Area of A = (Area of A+B) - (Area of B ) = 3 - 1.5 = 1.5

The video elaborates by mentioning that the height is measured at a right angle of the base. That means it does not necessarily lay within the triangle. Your X-axis in this situation is at a right triangle of the base (1,2) and thus forms the height of A. It equals a value of 3.

/e It's not impossible to work with the hypothenuse of B but really, that's more work for the same result

This post was edited by Forg0tten on Jul 6 2017 02:37am

Yes. You can test with other values other than 2 and get the proper result. The area of the upper triangle can always be determined by the area of the combined triangles minus the area of the lower triangle. Then compare with the proposed method.

this was my problem lol
thanks for clarifying my sanity check was ok

derp

This post was edited by Zpot on Jul 24 2017 09:09am