Help with math? Please!

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This image shows a square pyramid.

What is the surface area of this square pyramid?

36 ft²
72 ft²
78 ft²
84 ft²

1 Answer
Mar 27, 2018

36 ft^2

Explanation:

surface area is lateral
a perpendicular line from the top angle to the bottom is a perpendicular bisector so the line is now 3 and 3
so in triangle one (as i named it) we have a isosceles triangle (45-45-90) or a special right triangle (x-x-xsqrt2).
the area of triangle one is 1/2*bh , so 1/2*3*3, i.e. 9/2
9/2area of one triangle, as the base is a square all the measures are same so the area of all triangles will be same. on each side we have 2 triangles and we have 4 side so 8 triangles.
the total suface area is (9/2*8) = 36
enter image source here