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Area of the sector?

A hard-level "Area" problem."Arc × radius ÷ 2" works without knowing the central angle. Apply it to a whole circle, where the arc is the circumference, and the formula for a circle's area drops straight out.

GivenRadius 12 cm, arc length 10 cm. The central angle is not given

Area ★★★★☆☆ Area of the sector? 12cm 10cm

Hints

  1. The central angle is unknown, so "such-and-such a fraction of a circle" is closed to us. We need a route that uses only the arc length and the radius.
  2. Slice the sector into 8 thin wedges, like a pizza. Each slice is a long thin isosceles triangle.
  3. Move the slices over to the right and lay them out alternately pointing up and down. Cutting and rearranging changes nothing, so the area is untouched.
  4. Look at the width of the new shape. The arc has been shared out half along the top and half along the bottom, so the width is 10 ÷ 2 = 5 cm.
  5. The height is the height of each slice — that is, the radius, 12 cm.
  6. The finer the slices, the more the zigzag vanishes and the closer it comes to a true rectangle. So the area is 5 × 12 — in short, "arc × radius ÷ 2".

Answer 60cm²

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