Area of a triangle, Continued) – Sharp EL-9900 User Manual

Page 131

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Advanced Keyboard/TRIGONOMETRY USING THE SHARP EL-9900

Copyright © 2002, Sharp Electronics Corporation. Permission is granted to photocopy for educational use only.

9. Continue with the formula and press 2ndF SOLVER A (METHOD) and

3 (Graphic) to choose the Graphic solver.

10. To start the problem from the beginning, set A to 0. Move the cursor to

the A variable and press 2ndF EXE to see the Graphic solver variable

range screen.

11. Since area is always nonnegative, 0 could be used for BEGIN. Enter END

a value that you do not expect area to exceed, say 25. (A little bit of

estimation helps here! If your value for END is too small, increase it and

try again.)

12. Press 2ndF EXE and an autoscaled graph of the two sides of the equation

is drawn and the solution is obtained.

13. Enter Heron’s formula, A = [S(S-X)(S-Y)(S-Z)], press CL , and type the

following: ALPHA A ALPHA = 2ndF ALPHA S (

ALPHA

S – ALPHA X ) (

ALPHA S – ALPHA Y )

(

ALPHA

S – ALPHA Z ) .

14. Note that the square root symbol extends over the entire right hand side of

the equation, automatically grouping the expression under it.

15. You could enter the semiperimeter, S = (X + Y + Z), in a separate formula

in the SOLVER, but it is probably easier to find the value of S in the

computation mode and then use Heron’s formula in the SOLVER.

Press ENTER to view the variable list.

16. Use Heron's formula to find the area of a triangle with three sides of

length 7, 8, and 9. The value for S will be 12. Enter these into the solver

and press 2ndF

EXE to find the area.

AREA OF A TRIANGLE

(continued)

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