A few days ago
Mike

Confused on math problem! Help?

For my problem, I have to find the area of the hexagon but I have to figure out the length of the apothem and the perimeter then use the regular polygon formula to find my area. However, I am confused on finding the apothem and perimeter. Here is a diagram:

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6997/apothemqh1.jpg

Please explain to me why my apothem is 4 squareroot of 3 and my perimeter is 48. Thanks.

Top 1 Answers
A few days ago
Anonymous

Favorite Answer

The Perimeter is the distance around, so since it is a hexagon, which has 6 sides, each being 8 long, then 6×8=48

The Apothem, from your drawing, is one leg of a right triangle, so using the pythagorean theorum a^2+b^2=c^2

rearranged to c^2-a^2=b^2

8^2-4^2=apthem^2 or 64-16=48

the suare root of 48=6.928 which is 4 times the square root of 3

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