Question

How do you find the midpoint of (5, 2) and (-1, -2)?

Answer 1

`(2, 0)`

Explanation:

Split up the co-ordinates into `x`'s and `y`'s, which gives you `5, -1` and `2, -2` respectively.

Finding the midpoint is the same as finding an average. Add up the two values and divide by the number that there are. For `x`, this leaves `(5 + - 1) / 2 = 2`.

Doing the same for `y` yields `(2 + -2) / 2 = 0`.

Now re-attaching the `x` and `y` gives you the point `(2, 0)`.

You can also draw a graph and label the two points and through some metric trickery find the midpoint, such as measuring the length of the line, dividing it by two and finding the half-way point, but it's much quicker to work out averages, if less intuitive.