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AMC 10/12 Daily Bonus #29

 
 
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AMC 10/12 Daily Bonus #29
by Minkai Li - Saturday, March 2, 2019, 11:53 AM
 

I was working on the problem #29, the solution mentions that if a line splits the triangle in two it must pass through the centroid. Why is that?

 
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Re: AMC 10/12 Daily Bonus #29
by David Reynoso - Monday, March 4, 2019, 10:42 AM
 

The line $y = mx$ goes through $(0,0)$, which is one of the vertices of the triangle.

If a line goes through a vertex, then it splits the triangle in two triangles that have the same height from that vertex. Thus, the triangles have equal area if and only if the line is a median, in particular, the line goes through the centroid of the triangle.

Note we would have reached the same answer if we had used the midpoint of side $BC$ instead of the centroid of the triangle.