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How to Circumscribe a Triangle

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Updated:  
2016-03-26 10:58:29
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Trigonometry For Dummies
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Every triangle can be circumscribed by a circle, meaning that one circle — and only one — goes through all three vertices (corners) of any triangle. In laymen's terms, any triangle can fit into some circle with all its corners touching the circle.

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To circumscribe a triangle, all you need to do is find the circumcenter of the circle (at the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the triangle's sides). You can then find the radius of the circle, because the distance from the center of the circle to one of the triangle's vertices is the radius.

This exercise is a nice one to try your hand at with a compass and straightedge or with some geometry software.

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Mary Jane Sterling (Peoria, Illinois) is the author of Algebra I For Dummies, Algebra Workbook For Dummies, Algebra II For Dummies, Algebra II Workbook For Dummies, and many other For Dummies books. She taught at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois for more than 30 years, teaching algebra, business calculus, geometry, and finite mathematics.