An applet to show that the three altitudes of a triangle all meet in a single point.
The three vertices of the triangle above can each be dragged to show
that
the three altitudes still meet in a single point when we look at other
triangles.
The check box for Extended Altitudes lets you see that this
continues to work when the point of intersection is not inside the
triangle.
Having verified that the three altitudes meet in a single point, we
want to construct a proof. Select the "Large Triangle" check
box. We see that if we add in three more congruent triangles to
the picture, we get a larger triangle. The altitudes of the
original triangle become perpendicular bisectors of the sides of the
larger triangle. Those lines meet in a point that is the center
of a circle that circumscribes the larger triangle,
Created with GeoGebra
GeoGebra is a GNUed software package for mathematics visualization.
The home for the applications is http://www.geogebra.at.
Return to the Saint Louis University Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
home page
Return to the SLU
Calculus
Applet page.
Return to the GeoGebra Applet page.
Last updated By Mike May,
S.J., August 12, 2007.