Triangle - Basic Facts

Basic Facts

Triangles are assumed to be two-dimensional plane figures, unless the context provides otherwise (see Non-planar triangles, below). In rigorous treatments, a triangle is therefore called a 2-simplex (see also Polytope). Elementary facts about triangles were presented by Euclid in books 1–4 of his Elements, around 300 BC.

The measures of the interior angles of a triangle in Euclidean space always add up to 180 degrees. This allows determination of the measure of the third angle of any triangle given the measure of two angles. An exterior angle of a triangle is an angle that is a linear pair (and hence supplementary) to an interior angle. The measure of an exterior angle of a triangle is equal to the sum of the measures of the two interior angles that are not adjacent to it; this is the exterior angle theorem. The sum of the measures of the three exterior angles (one for each vertex) of any triangle is 360 degrees.

Read more about this topic:  Triangle

Famous quotes containing the words basic and/or facts:

    I fly in dreams, I know it is my privilege, I do not recall a single situation in dreams when I was unable to fly. To execute every sort of curve and angle with a light impulse, a flying mathematics—that is so distinct a happiness that it has permanently suffused my basic sense of happiness.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    Plain women he regarded as he did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and investigated by science.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)