How to find the area of a rectangle?
The word "geometry" in translation means "land surveying": "Geos" in Greek is earth, and "metry" is a measurement. Even the ancient Egyptians, thousands of years before our era, had to re-measure and share land after the floods of the great rivers of the Nile, the Euphrates or the Tigris. It was impossible to do without precise mathematical knowledge. So there was a science - geometry, purely applied, to solve practical problems. The definition of the areas of various figures was relevant to the urgent tasks, because the land plots were of different sizes and forms. In Russia there was published in 1629 the "Book of Sick Letter", in which methods for measuring the areas of polygons were set out. We use the formulas described in the book today.
To understand how to find the area of a rectangle,It is necessary to define the term "area". Each geometric figure is characterized by a number of quantities, one of which is the area. For a flat figure, the area is the main characteristic. If we divide the figure into squares with a side length equal to one and calculate their total number, then we obtain the area of the given figure. The unit of measurement of the area in the international metric SI system is a square meter.
Recall that a rectangle is calledquadrilateral with four right angles. The dimensions of the rectangle are determined by the lengths of its sides, which, as a rule, are denoted by the Latin letters a and b. Usually we take the size of one side of the rectangle for its length, and the other for the width or height. So how do you find the area of the rectangle? We need to know its length and width, that is, the size of its sides. If we cover the surface of a rectangle with a grid of squares with a side of one (1 centimeter, 1 millimeter, 1 meter ...) and count these small squares, we get a value equal to the product of the number of squares that fit along one side of the rectangle and their number along the other side. This quantity is the required area. That is, the formula for finding the area of a rectangle looks like this:
S = (a) * (b)
where a is the length of the rectangle, b is the width (or height) of the rectangle.
By the way, since each diagonal dividesrectangle into two equal rectangular triangles, then the area of the rectangle can also be determined by counting the area of one such triangle and multiplying the result by two. You just need to know the formula of the area of the triangle, but this is a completely different story!
