Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Euler's quadrilateral theorem or Euler's law on quadrilaterals, named after Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), describes a relation between the sides of a convex quadrilateral and its diagonals. It is a generalisation of the parallelogram law which in turn can be seen as generalisation of the Pythagorean theorem .
This formula generalizes Heron's formula for the area of a triangle. A triangle may be regarded as a quadrilateral with one side of length zero. From this perspective, as d (or any one side) approaches zero, a cyclic quadrilateral converges into a cyclic triangle (all triangles are cyclic), and Brahmagupta's formula simplifies to Heron's formula.
More generally, if the quadrilateral is a rectangle with sides a and b and diagonal d then Ptolemy's theorem reduces to the Pythagorean theorem. In this case the center of the circle coincides with the point of intersection of the diagonals. The product of the diagonals is then d 2, the right hand side of Ptolemy's relation is the sum a 2 + b 2.
According to the characterization of these quadrilaterals, the two red squares on two opposite sides of the quadrilateral have the same total area as the two blue squares on the other pair of opposite sides. In Euclidean geometry, an orthodiagonal quadrilateral is a quadrilateral in which the diagonals cross at right angles.
Usually the quadrilateral is assumed to be convex, but there are also crossed cyclic quadrilaterals. The formulas and properties given below are valid in the convex case. The word cyclic is from the Ancient Greek κύκλος (kuklos), which means "circle" or "wheel". All triangles have a circumcircle, but not all quadrilaterals do.
In geometry, Brahmagupta's theorem states that if a cyclic quadrilateral is orthodiagonal (that is, has perpendicular diagonals), then the perpendicular to a side from the point of intersection of the diagonals always bisects the opposite side. [1] It is named after the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta (598-668). [2]
An arbitrary quadrilateral and its diagonals. Bases of similar triangles are parallel to the blue diagonal. Ditto for the red diagonal. The base pairs form a parallelogram with half the area of the quadrilateral, A q, as the sum of the areas of the four large triangles, A l is 2 A q (each of the two pairs reconstructs the quadrilateral) while that of the small triangles, A s is a quarter of A ...
Bretschneider's formula generalizes Brahmagupta's formula for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral, which in turn generalizes Heron's formula for the area of a triangle.. The trigonometric adjustment in Bretschneider's formula for non-cyclicality of the quadrilateral can be rewritten non-trigonometrically in terms of the sides and the diagonals e and f to give [2] [3]