How to Divide a Scalene Triangle Into Nine Triangles

Scalene triangles are rarely used in decorations because of their inconsistency.

A scalene triangle is a type of triangle that has no equal sides and no equal angles. It is the black-sheep of the triangle world because there are thousands of shapes and sizes that a scalene triangle can make. What is even more interesting about scalene triangles is that they can be broken down further to make even more triangles. It is even possible to break a single scalene triangle down into nine different triangles.

Instructions

1. Draw a single dot in the middle of the original triangle. This will be the center of all your triangle points. From this point, you will be able to split the triangle up into different sections.

2. Draw a single line from the middle point to each angle's vertex---the point at which the sides of an angle meet. This will break the triangle into three new triangles. Each of these triangles will also be scalene because the original triangle consisted of unique angles and sides.

3. Draw three new dots in the middle of the three new triangles.

4. Draw lines from the dots to each of the corners in the dots' respective triangles. The net result is nine separate scalene triangles.

References

• Mathworld: Scalene Triangles
• Maths is Fun: Triangles