Trigonometry For Dummies
Book image
Explore Book Buy On Amazon

Every triangle can be circumscribed by a circle, meaning that one circle — and only one — goes through all three vertices (corners) of any triangle. In laymen's terms, any triangle can fit into some circle with all its corners touching the circle.

image0.jpg

To circumscribe a triangle, all you need to do is find the circumcenter of the circle (at the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the triangle's sides). You can then find the radius of the circle, because the distance from the center of the circle to one of the triangle's vertices is the radius.

This exercise is a nice one to try your hand at with a compass and straightedge or with some geometry software.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Mary Jane Sterling is the author of Algebra I For Dummies and many other For Dummies titles. She has been teaching mathematics at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, for more than 30 years and has loved working with future business executives, physical therapists, teachers, and many others.

This article can be found in the category: