Bunuel wrote:
Thus, the perpendicular BD divides right triangle ABC into two similar triangles ADB and BDC (which are also similar to big triangle ABC). Now, in these three triangles the ratio of the corresponding sides will be equal (corresponding sides are the sides opposite the same angles). For example: AB/AC=AD/AB=BD/BC. This property (sometimes along with Pythagoras) will give us the following: if we know ANY 2 values from AB, AD, AC, BC, BD, CD then we'll be able to find the other 4.We are given that BD=5 thus to find AC we need to know the length of any other line segment.
Hope it helps.
Hi Bunuel,
I have a theoretical question based on the highlighted statement above:
It seems as though there is always overlap of sides(since we have similar triangles) so your highlighted statement looks to be true. For the sake of saving time -- i was trying to get a deeper understanding of this method -- Can there ever be a case when they give us the length of two sides, but since they are ONLY of one triangle, we can't make the leap onto others(minus the obvious correlations between the ratio) Meaning, In this same problem, if Statement 1 and 2 were given but if we weren't given a value of BD, then we wouldn't have been able to solve it. Correct?
Is it safe to say that two sides will ALWAYS create sufficiency, even if the two sides are on the same triangle?