1995 AJHSME Problems/Problem 24
Problem
In parallelogram ,
is the altitude to the base
and
is the altitude to the base
. [Note: Both pictures represent the same parallelogram.] If
,
, and
, then
Solution
Note that . We will try to find
,
, &
.
First, note that and
, by properties of a parallelogram. Also,
,.
Since is a right angle, we can use the pythagorean theorem:
Now we can finally substitute: