Jump to content

Conway triangle notation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Fjackson (talk | contribs) at 10:58, 23 February 2008 (to satisfy request for information). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

In geometry, the Conway triangle notation allows trigonometric functions of a triangle to be managed algebraically. Given a reference triangle whose sides are a, b and c and whose internal angles are A, B and C then the Conway triangle notation is simply represented as follows:-

   where       is 2 × Area of reference triangle

and

in particular

     where is the Brocard angle.

Hence:

Some important identities:

   where is the circumcenter and   

Some useful trigonometric conversions:

   where is the incenter and   


Some useful formulas:


Some examples using Conway triangle notation:

Let D be the distance between two points P and Q whose trilinear coordinates are pa : pb : pc and qa : qb : qc. Let Kp = apa + bpb + cpc and let Kp = aqa + bqb + cqc. Then D is given by the formula:

Using this formula it is possible to determine OH, the distance between the circumcenter and the orthocenter as follows:

For the circumcenter and for the orthocenter

Hence:


Which gives:

References

  • Weisstein, Eric W. "Conway Triangle Notation". MathWorld.