Progression of the 2nd congruent angle


We start with the original triangle:

 

Now what we are going to do is prove that A = FEC. We are going to do this by looking at quadrilateral OFCE.

 

 

 

Since this quadrilateral is inscribed in the triangle and formed by the perpendiculars, we know that F and E, are right angles.

 

 

Additionally looking back, if we connect EF and OC, we see that FCO and FEO (in orange) both share arc OF.

 

 

Therefore, FCO = FEO (ACD = FEA). Now look at triangle ACD.

 

 

We know that triangle ACD is a right triangle, since D is one of the perpendiculars and therefore a right angle. Due to this fact we know that A and C must therefore add to 90 degrees (A and C are complementary).

 

Now look at the figure below:

 

We additionally can see that since E forms a right angle, we know that CEF must be complementary with FEA. Now since above we showed that ACD (FCO) was equal to FEA (FEO), we must conclude that FEC = A. This is the second part of what we needed to show.

 

 

 


Link back to Essay 1