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Centroid of a triangle
CentroidFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In mathematics and physics, the centroid or geometric center of a
two-dimensional region is, informally, the point at which a cardboard cut-out of
the region could be perfectly balanced on the tip of a pencil (assuming uniform
density and a uniform gravitational field). Formally, the centroid of a plane figure
or two-dimensional shape is the arithmetic mean ("average") position of all the
points in the shape. The definition extends to any object in n-dimensional space:
its centroid is the mean position of all the points in all of the coordinate directions.
While in geometry the term barycenter is a synonym for "centroid", in physics
"barycenter" may also mean the physical center of mass or the center of gravity,
depending on the context. The center of mass (and center of gravity in a uniform
gravitational field) is the arithmetic mean of all points weighted by the local
density or specific weight. If a physical object has uniform density, then its center
of mass is the same as the centroid of its shape.
In geography, the centroid of a radial projection of a region of the Earth's surface to sea level is known as the region's
geographical center.
Contents
1 Properties
2 Triangle centroid
3 Locating the centroid
3.1 Plumb line method
3.2 Balancing method
3.3 Of a finite set of points
3.4 By geometric decomposition
3.5 By integral formula
3.5.1 Bounded region
3.5.1.1 Example
3.6 Of an L-shaped object
3.7 Of triangle and tetrahedron
3.8 Centroid of polygon
3.9 Centroid of cone or pyramid
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Properties
The geometric centroid of a convex object always lies in the object. A non-convex object might have a centroid that is
outside the figure itself. The centroid of a ring or a bowl, for example, lies in the object's central void.
If the centroid is defined, it is a fixed point of all isometries in its symmetry group. In particular, the geometric centroid of
an object lies in the intersection of all its hyperplanes of symmetry. The centroid of many figures (regular polygon, regular
polyhedron, cylinder, rectangle, rhombus, circle, sphere, ellipse, ellipsoid, superellipse, superellipsoid, etc.) can be
determined by this principle alone.
In particular, the centroid of a parallelogram is the meeting point of its two diagonals. This is not true for other
quadrilaterals.
For the same reason, the centroid of an object with translational symmetry is undefined (or lies outside the enclosing
space), because a translation has no fixed point.
Triangle centroid
The centroid of a triangle is the intersection of the three medians of the triangle (each median connecting a vertex with
the midpoint of the opposite side). It lies on the triangle's Euler line, which also goes through various other key points
including the orthocenter and the circumcenter.[1][2]
Let M be any point in the plane of a triangle with vertices A, B, and C and centroid G. Then the sum of the squared
distances of M from the three vertices exceeds the sum of the squared distances of the centroid G from the vertices by
three times the squared distance between M and G:
[3]
The sum of the squares of the triangle's sides equals three times the sum of the squared distances of the centroid from the
vertices:
[4]
For other properties of a triangle's centroid, see below.
Locating the centroid
Plumb line method
The centroid of a uniform planar lamina, such as (a) below, may be determined, experimentally, by using a plumbline and
a pin to find the center of mass of a thin body of uniform density having the same shape. The body is held by the pin
inserted at a point near the body's perimeter, in such a way that it can freely rotate around the pin; and the plumb line is
dropped from the pin (b). The position of the plumbline is traced on the body. The experiment is repeated with the pin
inserted at a different point of the object. The intersection of the two lines is the centroid of the figure (c).
(a) (b) (c)
This method can be extended (in theory) to concave shapes where the centroid lies outside the shape, and to solids (of
uniform density), but the positions of the plumb lines need to be recorded by means other than drawing.
(a) 2D Object
(b) Object described using simpler
elements(c) Centroids of elements of the
object
Balancing method
For convex two-dimensional shapes, the centroid can be found by balancing the shape on a smaller shape, such as the top
of a narrow cylinder. The centroid occurs somewhere within the range of contact between the two shapes. In principle,
progressively narrower cylinders can be used to find the centroid to arbitrary accuracy. In practice air currents make this
unfeasible. However, by marking the overlap range from multiple balances, one can achieve a considerable level of
accuracy.
Of a finite set of points
The centroid of a finite set of points in is
.[5]
This point minimizes the sum of squared Euclidean distances between itself and each point in the set.
By geometric decomposition
The centroid of a plane figure can be computed by dividing it into a finite number of simpler figures
, computing the centroid and area of each part, and then computing
Holes in the figure , overlaps between the parts, or parts that extend outside the figure can all be handled using
negative areas . Namely, the measures should be taken with positive and negative signs in such a way that the sum
of the signs of for all parts that enclose a given point is 1 if belongs to , and 0 otherwise.
For example, the figure below (a) is easily divided into a square and a triangle, both with positive area; and a circular
hole, with negative area (b).
The centroid of each part can be found in any list of centroids of simple shapes (c). Then the centroid of the figure is the
weighted average of the three points. The horizontal position of the centroid, from the left edge of the figure is
The vertical position of the centroid is found in the same way.
The same formula holds for any three-dimensional objects, except that each should be the volume of , rather than
its area. It also holds for any subset of , for any dimension , with the areas replaced by the -dimensional measures
of the parts.
By integral formula
The centroid of a subset X of can also be computed by the integral
where the integrals are taken over the whole space , and g is the characteristic function of the subset, which is 1 inside
X and 0 outside it.[6]
Note that the denominator is simply the measure of the set X. This formula cannot be applied if the
set X has zero measure, or if either integral diverges.
Another formula for the centroid is
where Ck is the kth coordinate of C, and Sk(z) is the measure of the intersection of X with the hyperplane defined by the
equation xk = z. Again, the denominator is simply the measure of X.
For a plane figure, in particular, the barycenter coordinates are
where A is the area of the figure X; Sy(x) is the length of the intersection of X with the vertical line at abscissa x; and Sx(y)
is the analogous quantity for the swapped axes.
Bounded region
The centroid of a region bounded by the graphs of the continuous functions and such that on
the interval , , is given by
where is the area of the region (given by ).[7]
Example
Consider the semicircle bounded by and . Its area is .
Semicircle with a red dot showing the centroid
The centroid is located at .
Of an L-shaped object
This is a method of determining the centroid of an L-shaped object.
Divide the shape into two rectangles, as shown in fig 2. Find the centroids of these two rectangles by drawing the
diagonals. Draw a line joining the centroids. The centroid of the shape must lie on this line AB.
1.
Divide the shape into two other rectangles, as shown in fig 3. Find the centroids of these two rectangles by drawing
the diagonals. Draw a line joining the centroids. The centroid of the L-shape must lie on this line CD.
2.
As the centroid of the shape must lie along AB and also along CD, it is obvious that it is at the intersection of these
two lines, at O. The point O might not lie inside the L-shaped object.
3.
Of triangle and tetrahedron
The centroid of a triangle is the point of intersection of its medians (the lines
joining each vertex with the midpoint of the opposite side). The centroid
divides each of the medians in the ratio 2:1, which is to say it is located ⅓ of
the perpendicular distance between each side and the opposing point (see
figures at right). Its Cartesian coordinates are the means of the coordinates of
the three vertices. That is, if the three vertices are ,
, and , then the centroid is
The centroid is therefore at in barycentric coordinates.
The centroid is also the physical center of mass if the triangle is made from a uniform sheet of material; or if all the mass
is concentrated at the three vertices, and evenly divided among them. On the other hand, if the mass is distributed along
the triangle's perimeter, with uniform linear density, then the center of mass lies at the Spieker center (the incenter of the
medial triangle), which does not (in general) coincide with the geometric centroid of the full triangle.
The area of the triangle is 1.5 times the length of any side times the perpendicular distance from the side to the
centroid.[8]
A triangle's centroid lies on its Euler line between its orthocenter and its circumcenter, exactly twice as close to the latter
as to the former.
Similar results hold for a tetrahedron: its centroid is the intersection of all line segments that connect each vertex to the
centroid of the opposite face. These line segments are divided by the centroid in the ratio 3:1. The result generalizes to
any n-dimensional simplex in the obvious way. If the set of vertices of a simplex is , then considering the
vertices as vectors, the centroid is
The geometric centroid coincides with the center of mass if the mass is uniformly distributed over the whole simplex, or
concentrated at the vertices as n equal masses.
The isogonal conjugate of a triangle's centroid is its symmedian point.
Centroid of polygon
The centroid of a non-self-intersecting closed polygon defined by n vertices (x0,y0), (x1,y1), ..., (xn−1,yn−1) is the point
(Cx, Cy), where
and where A is the polygon's signed area,
.[9]
In these formulas, the vertices are assumed to be numbered in order of their occurrence along the polygon's perimeter,
and the vertex ( xn, yn ) is assumed to be the same as ( x0, y0 ). Note that if the points are numbered in clockwise order the
area A, computed as above, will have a negative sign; but the centroid coordinates will be correct even in this case.
Centroid of cone or pyramid
The centroid of a cone or pyramid is located on the line segment that connects the apex to the centroid of the base. For a
solid cone or pyramid, the centroid is 1/4 the distance from the base to the apex. For a cone or pyramid that is just a shell
(hollow) with no base, the centroid is 1/3 the distance from the base plane to the apex.
See also
Chebyshev center
Fréchet mean
K-means algorithm
List of centroids
Pappus's centroid theorem
Triangle center
Notes
^ Altshiller-Court (1925, p. 101)1.
^ Kay (1969, pp. 18,189,225-226)2.
^ Altshiller-Court (1925, pp. 70-71)3.
^ Altshiller-Court (1925, pp. 70-71)4.
^ Protter & Morrey, Jr. (1970, p. 520)5.
^ Protter & Morrey, Jr. (1970, p. 526)6.
^ Larson (1998, pp. 458–460)7.
^ Johnson (2007, p. 173)8.
^ Bourke (July 1997)9.
References
Altshiller-Court, Nathan (1925), College Geometry: An Introduction to the Modern Geometry of the Triangle and
the Circle (2nd ed.), New York: Barnes & Noble, LCCN 52-13504 (http://lccn.loc.gov/52-13504)
Bourke, Paul (July 1997). "Calculating the area and centroid of a polygon" (http://paulbourke.net/geometry
/polygonmesh).
Johnson, Roger A. (2007), Advanced Euclidean Geometry, Dover
Kay, David C. (1969), College Geometry, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, LCCN 69-12075
(http://lccn.loc.gov/69-12075)
Larson, Roland E.; Hostetler, Robert P.; Edwards, Bruce H. (1998), Calculus of a Single Variable (6th ed.),
Houghton Mifflin Company
Protter, Murray H.; Morrey, Jr., Charles B. (1970), College Calculus with Analytic Geometry (2nd ed.), Reading:
Addison-Wesley, LCCN 76-87042 (http://lccn.loc.gov/76-87042)
External links
Encyclopedia of Triangle Centers (http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/encyclopedia/ETC.html) by Clark Kimberling.
The centroid is indexed as X(2).
Characteristic Property of Centroid (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/triangle/CharacteristicPropertyOfCentroid.shtml)
at cut-the-knot
Barycentric Coordinates (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/triangle/barycenter.shtml) at cut-the-knot
Interactive animations showing Centroid of a triangle (http://www.mathopenref.com/trianglecentroid.html) and
Centroid construction with compass and straightedge (http://www.mathopenref.com/constcentroid.html)
Experimentally finding the medians and centroid of a triangle (http://dynamicmathematicslearning.com
/findingtrianglemedian.html) at Dynamic Geometry Sketches (http://dynamicmathematicslearning.com
/JavaGSPLinks.htm), an interactive dynamic geometry sketch using the gravity simulator of Cinderella.
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Categories: Affine geometry Geometric centers Means Triangle centers
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