How do you find a midpoint of two numbers ?
2 Answers
Find their average: take their sum, and divide it by 2.
Explanation:
The midpoint
Using this, we can get a formula for the midpoint
Picture
#m-a=b-m#
This equation says: "The difference between
Now, all we do is rearrange this to equation to solve for
#m-a color(green)(" "+ m)=b" "# (add#m# to both sides)
#" "2m" "=bcolor(green)(" "+a)" "# (add#a# to both sides)
#" "m" "=(b+a)/color(red)2" "# (divide both sides by 2)
And there it is—the formula for the midpoint! This is often called the average of the two numbers
#m=(a+b)/2#
Example:
What is the midpoint of 3 and 5? Well, the answer is intuitively 4, but with the formula, we get:
#m=(3+5)/2=8/2=4#
which matches our intuition.
The method Geoff K gave also works with a combination of negative and positive numbers
Explanation:
Suppose we have
..............................................................................................................
Suppose we have