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[parent] illustration of why SSA may not prove congruence (Example)

SSA cannot be used to prove that two triangles are congruent when the angles that are known to be congruent are acute. Below is an illustration of how this can happen.

In the picture below, $\triangle ABC$ and $\triangle ABD$ share the angle $\angle A$ and the side $\overline{AB}$ , and the line segments $\overline{BC}$ and $\overline{BD}$ are congruent; however, $\triangle ABC$ and $\triangle ABD$ are clearly not congruent.


\begin{pspicture}(-8,-1)(6,5) \pspolygon(-7,0)(2.5,4)(5,0) \psline(0,0)(2.5,4) \... ...put[b](2.5,4.1){$B$} \rput[u](5,-0.3){$C$} \rput[u](0,-0.3){$D$} \end{pspicture}




"illustration of why SSA may not prove congruence" is owned by Wkbj79.
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Cross-references: line segments, side, acute, angles, congruent, triangles, SSA

This is version 3 of illustration of why SSA may not prove congruence, born on 2007-05-10, modified 2007-06-26.
Object id is 9362, canonical name is IllustrationOfWhySSAMayNotProveCongruence.
Accessed 1813 times total.

Classification:
AMS MSC51-01 (Geometry :: Instructional exposition )
 51M99 (Geometry :: Real and complex geometry :: Miscellaneous)
 97D70 (Mathematics education :: Education and instruction in mathematics :: Diagnosis, analysis and remediation of learning difficulties and student errors)

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