I’m trying to figure out how to find the area of triangles with 3 sides given, but it boggles my mind. Maths isn’t my strongest point. Explain like I’m five, please 🙂
In: Mathematics
Heron’s Formula is that the area of a triangle is sqrt(s*(s-a)*(s-b)*(s-c)), where a, b, and c are the sides of a triangle and s = (a+b+c)/2. I don’t think there’s really an intuitive way to understand *why* it works, but you can prove that it does work.
[One way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron%27s_formula#Algebraic_proof_using_the_Pythagorean_theorem) to do it is to split the triangle you’re looking at into two right triangles by starting at one vertex and drawing a line to the opposite edge. Right triangles are easier to work with because you can use the Pythagorean Theorem to relate the sides to each other. Do some algebra and you can get to Heron’s Formula.
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