From: Dick Buck <rabuck34@hotmail.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 2001080315:05:28
Subject: Centers of triangles

	
If you don't want to just hunt down web references about the various
centers of a general triangle, you can find the same information in
any mathematical encyclopedia.  For example in The Universal
Encyclopedia of Mathematics published by Simon and Schuster there is
an extended discussion (35 pages) of the mathematics of the general
(and specific) triangle.  Among other things, it contains a discussion
with examples of the orthocenter (the point of concurrence of the
altitudes), the centroid (the point of concurrence of the medians),
the circumcenter (the point of concurrence of the perpendicular
bisectors of the sides) and the incenter (the point of concurrence of
the angle bisectors).  It also discusses the Euler Line, the straight
line on which the first three "centers" mentioned above lie for any
triangle.

This was part of all geometry and analytic geometry courses in high
school a few years ago, so if you could find some slightly older high
school algebra, geometry or trigonometry texts, the same discussion
would be there.

The reason I suggested a mathematical encyclopedia first is because I
think one should be part of any math student's (and teacher's)
library.  They really are useful if you are interested in mathematics.
By the same reasoning, I think that at least one good mathematical
table book (CRC, Burringtons, etc.) should also be in everyone's
library.

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