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# difference between triangle and a quadrilateral

From Wikipedia

In Euclidean plane geometry, a quadrilateral is a polygon with four sides (or 'edges') and four vertices or corners. Sometimes, the term quadrangle is used, by analogy with triangle, and sometimes tetragon for consistency with pentagon (5-sided), hexagon (6-sided) and so on. The word quadrilateral is made of the words quad (meaning "four") and lateral (meaning "of sides").

Quadrilaterals are simple (not self-intersecting) or complex (self-intersecting), also called crossed. Simple quadrilaterals are either convex or concave.

The interior angles of a simple quadrilateral add up to 360 degrees of arc. In a crossed quadrilateral, the interior angles on either side of the crossing add up to 720Â°.

All convex quadrilaterals tile the plane by repeated rotation around the midpoints of their edges.

A parallelogram is a quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. Equivalent conditions are that opposite sides are of equal length; that opposite angles are equal; or that the diagonals bisect each other. Parallelograms also include the square, rectangle, rhombus and rhomboid.

• Rhombus or rhomb: all four sides are of equal length. Equivalent conditions are that opposite sides are parallel and opposite angles are equal, or that the diagonals perpendicularly bisect each other. An informal description is "a pushed-over square" (including a square).
• Rhomboid: a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are oblique (not right angles). Informally: "a pushed-over rectangle with no right angles."
• Rectangle: all four angles are right angles. An equivalent condition is that the diagonals bisect each other and are equal in length. Informally: "a box or oblong" (including a square).
• Square (regular quadrilateral): all four sides are of equal length (equilateral), and all four angles are right angles. An equivalent condition is that opposite sides are parallel (a square is a parallelogram), that the diagonals perpendicularly bisect each other, and are of equal length. A quadrilateral is a square if and only if it is both a rhombus and a rectangle.
• Oblong: a term sometimes used to denote a rectangle which has unequal adjacent sides (i.e. a rectangle that is not a square).

A shape that is both a rhombus (four equal sides) and a rectangle (four equal angles) is a square (four equal sides and four equal angles).

• Kite: two pairs of adjacent sides are of equal length. This implies that one diagonal divides the kite into congruent triangles, and so the angles between the two pairs of equal sides are equal in measure. It also implies that the diagonals are perpendicular. (It is common, especially in the discussions on plane tessellations, to refer to the concave quadrilateral with these properties as a dart or arrowhead, with term kite being restricted to the convex shape.)
• Orthodiagonal quadrilateral: the diagonals cross at right angles.
• Trapezium (British English) or trapezoid (NAm.): one pair of opposite sides are parallel.
• Isosceles trapezium (Brit.) or isosceles trapezoid (NAm.): one pair of opposite sides are parallel and the base angles are equal in measure. This implies that the other two sides are of equal length, and that the diagonals are of equal length. An alternative definition is: "a quadrilateral with an axis of symmetry bisecting one pair of opposite sides".
• Trapezium (NAm.): no sides are parallel. (In British English this would be called an irregular quadrilateral, and was once called a trapezoid.)
• Cyclic quadrilateral: the four vertices lie on a circumscribed circle. A quadrilateral is cyclic if and only if opposite angles sum to 180Â°.
• Tangential quadrilateral: the four edges are tangential to an inscribed circle. Another term for a tangential polygon is inscriptible.
• Bicentric quadrilateral: both cyclic and tangential.

## Area of a convex quadrilateral

There are various general formulas for the area of a convex quadrilateral.

The area of a quadrilateral ABCD can be calculated using vectors. Let vectors AC and BD form the diagonals from A to C and from B to D. The area of the quadrilateral is then

\frac{1}{2} |{AC}\times{BD}|,

which is the magnitude of the cross product of vectors AC and BD. In two-dimensional Euclidean space, expressing vector AC as a free vector in Cartesian space equal to (x1,y1) and BD as (x2,y2), this can be rewritten as:

In geometry, a cyclic quadrilateral is a quadrilateral whose vertices all lie on a single circle. The vertices are said to be concyclic.

In a cyclic simple (non-self-intersecting) quadrilateral, opposite angles are supplementary (their sum is Ï€ radians or 180Â°). Equivalently, each exterior angle is equal to the opposite interior angle.

## Area

The area of a cyclic quadrilateral is given by Brahmagupta's formula as long as the sides are given:

\sqrt{(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)(s-d)}

where s, the semiperimeter, is s=\frac{a+b+c+d}{2}.

This area is maximal among all quadrilaterals having the same sequence of side lengths.

The area of a cyclic quadrilateral with successive sides a, b, c, d and angle \gamma between sides b and c can also be expressed as

## Diagonals

Ptolemy's theorem expresses the product of the lengths of the two diagonals p and q of a cyclic quadrilateral as equal to the sum of the products ac and bd of opposite sides:

pq = ac + bd.

In any convex quadrilateral, the two diagonals together partition the quadrilateral into four triangles; in a cyclic quadrilateral, opposite pairs of these four triangles are similar to each other.

A cyclic quadrilateral with successive vertices A, B, C, D and successive sides a=AB, b=BC, c=CD, and d=DA and with diagonals p=AC and q=BD has:

and

If the intersection of the diagonals divides one diagonal into segments of lengths e and f, and divides the other diagonal into segments of lengths g and h, then ef = gh. (This holds because both diagonals are chords of a circle.)

## Special cases

Any square, rectangle, or isosceles trapezoid is cyclic. A kite is cyclic if and only if it has two right angles.

## Other properties

A cyclic quadrilateral with successive sides a, b, c, d and semiperimeter s has circumradius (the radius of the circumscribing circle) given by

There are no cyclic quadrilaterals with rational area and with unequal rational sides in either arithmetic or geometric progression.

For a cyclic quadrilateral with successive sides a, b, c, d, semiperimeter s, and angle A between sides a and d, the trigonometric functions of A are given by

\cos A = \frac{a^2 + d^2 - b^2 - c^2}{2(ad + bc)};
\tan \frac{A}{2} = \sqrt{\frac{(s-a)(s-d)}{(s-b)(s-c)}}.

Four lines, each perpendicular to one side of a cyclic quadrilateral and passing through the opposite side's midpoint, are concurrent.

## Properties of cyclic quadrilaterals that are also orthodiagonal

Brahmagupta's theorem states that for a cyclic quadrilateral that is also orthodiagonal (has mutually perpendicular diagonals), the perpendicular from any side through the point of intersection of the diagonals bisects the other side.

If a cyclic quadrilateral is also orthodiagonal, the distance from the circumcenter (the center of the circumscribed circle) to any side equals half the length of the opposite side.

For a cyclic orthodiagonal quadrilateral, suppose the intersection of the diagonals divides one diagonal into segments of lengths p1 and p2 and divides the other diagonal into segments of lengths q1 and q2. Then

where D is the diameter of the circumcircle. This holds because the diagonals are perpendicular chords of a circle. Equivalently, letting R = D / 2 be the radius of the circumcircle, the average of p_1^2, p_2^2, q_1^2, and q_2^2 is R^2. Moreover, the equations a2 + c2 = b2 + d2 = D2 imply that in an orthodiagonal cyclic quadrilateral, the sum of the squares of the sides equals eight times the square of the circumradius.

Question:Just wondering what the differences were/ what the mean! thanks

Answers:huh? a quadrilateral is any 4 sided shape in the world that is encloses an area. parallelogram is a particular 4 sided shape that has 2 different sets of parallel sides that are differing lenghts that are also paralel to each other. see here for help: http://www.mathopenref.com/parallelogram.html

Question:and which one uses ~ and which one uses the = with the ~ on top. yes, i am trying to solidify my knowledge about proofs and how how triangles are similar.

Answers:congruent are exactly the same size and shape but similiar have just the same shape or just the same size. but i dont know about the symbols. srry!

Question:A certain quadrilateral has sides a,b,c,d and respective opposite angles A,B,C,D. Angles A and C are supplementary, and so are angles B and D. The sum of the lengths of side a and side c is equal to the sum of the lengths of side b and side d. Find the distance between the centers of these two circles: 1. The circle which circumscribes the quadrilateral, such that all four of its vertices are points on the circle. 2. The circle which inscribes the quadrilateral, such that all four of its sides are tangent to the inscribed circle. Find the radius of the circumscribed circle, Rc, and the radius of the inscribed circle Ri, in terms of the quadrilateral's sides and vertices, and then express the distance between the centers of the two circles in terms of these radii.

Answers:A quadrilateral with both inscribed and circumscribed circles is called "bicentric". The problem of finding the distance between the centers is known as Fuss' Problem and the solution "x" (less than R) satisfies: 1/Ri = 1/(Rc+x) + 1/(Rc-x) x = [Rc + Ri - Ri (4Rc + Ri )] However, I don't have a proof short enough to present here. See the reference below. To find Rc and Ri in terms of the sides, it helps to have some area formulas. The trig triangle area formula {Area=(1/2)abSin( )} gives two different formulas (splitting the rectangle into triangles with the two diagonals, subtending angles and ). There is also the Brahmagupta formula using the semiperimeter s=a+c=b+d. (See the reference belwo for proof.) Area = (1/2)(ab+cd)Sin( ) = (1/2)(ad+bc)Sin( ) = [(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)(s-d)] = [abcd] Also, splitting the rectangle into four triangles by connecting the incenter with the vertices produces: Area = (1/2)a(Ri) + (1/2)b(Ri) + (1/2)c(Ri) + (1/2)c(Ri) = Ri=2 [abcd]/(a+b+c+d) Finally Ptolemy (proof in the references), letting p and q be the diagonals of the rectangle, which are bases of isosceles triangles with sides (Rc) and central angles 2 and 2 ac+bd = pq = [2(Rc)Sin( )][2(Rc)Sin( )) (Rc) = (ac+bd) / (4Sin Sin ) Multiplying the top and bottom by Area : (Rc) = (ac+bd) / (4Sin Sin ) (1/2)(ab+cd)Sin( ) (1/2)(ad+bc)Sin( ) / (abcd) Producing: Rc = (1/4) [(ac+bd)(ab+cd)(ad+bc)/(abcd)] We could substitute this expression for Rc along with Ri=2 [abcd]/(a+b+c+d) into the above formula for x= [Rc +Ri -Ri (4Rc +Ri )], but it doesn't look like it will simplify nicely and I'm too lazy to try.

Question:What is the maximum number of intersection points between a quadrilateral and a triangle (where no sides of the polygons are on the same line)?

Answers:Hi, A quadrilateral is a 4-sided figure, but it doesn't have to be a rectangle, square or parallelogram. Instead it can be a V-shaped concave figure and still have 4 sides. With this type of quadrilateral, a triangle can intersect with it 8 times.<==ANSWER . . . . . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . / . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . / .. . . . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . . TRIANGLE . . . / . . . . . . . . . . . . . \ /. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . / \ ./ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ./ . \/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . / . / \ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ./ . /___\______ _______. ____./____ BASE of TRIANGLE . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . / . . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . . . . . / . . . . . . \ . . . . . . . * . . . . . / . . . . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . .\ . . . . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . ./ V-shaped quadrilateral . . . . . . . . .\ . . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . \ . . . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . . \. . . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . . .\ . . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . . . \ . . . ./ . . . . . . . . . . . .\. . ./ . . . . . . . . . . . . \. ./ . . . . . . . . . . . . .\/ I hope that helps!! :-)