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## Can we Prove that ……..

The length of any side of a triangle is not more than half of its perimeter

### Key Concepts

Triangle Inequality

Perimeter

Geometry

But try the problem first…

Answer: Yes we can definitely prove that by Triangle Inequality

Source

Mathematical Circles – Chapter 6 – Inequalities Problem 3

Mathematical Circles by Dmitri Fomin , Sergey Genkin , Llia Itenberg

## Try with Hints

First Hint

We can start this sum by using this picture below

The length of the three sides of this triangle are a,b and c. So if we apply triangle inequality which implies that the length of one side of a triangle is less than the sum of the lengths of the two sides of that triangle. In reference to the theorem

b + c > a

So can you try to do the rest of the sum ????????

Second Hint

According to the question we have to find the perimeter at first

Perimeter is the sum of the length of all sides of the triangle = a + b + c

And the length of each side is a or b or c.

We have to prove : a + b + c > length of any one side

This can be one of the most important hint for this problem. Try to do the rest of the sum …………………………..

Final Step

Here is the rest of the sum :

As stated above if we use triangle inequality :

b + c > a

Lets add a to both the sides

a + b + c > a + a

a + b + c > 2 a

The left hand side of the above inequality is the perimeter of this triangle.

perimeter > 2 a

So , $\frac {perimeter}{2} > a$

$\frac {perimeter}{2}$ = semi perimeter

Hence this is proved that the length of one side of a triangle is less than half of its perimeter.