In triangle ABC, point X is the midpoint of side AC and point Y is the midpoint f side BC. If point R is the midpoint of line segment XC and if point S is the midpoint of line segment YC, what is the area of triangular region RCS?
Let's think about the are of triangle ABC. We can make base of the triangle AC, and the height will be the distance between B and the line AC. So the area of triangle ABC is:
AC * (distance between B and the line AC) / 2
Now let's consider the are of triangle ABX. We can make base of the triangle is AX. This is exactly half of the length of AB. The height of the triangle is the distance between B and the line AC. So the height of this triangle is the same as the height of triangle ABC. So the area of triangle ABX is:
AX * (distance between B and the line AC) / 2
So the only difference between the formula for the area of ABC and the formula for the area of ABX is that for ABC, we are using AC, and for ABX we are using AX. We know that AX is half of AC. Therefore, the area of ABX must be half as large as the area of ABC.
1 Explanation