[Math] Area of a trapezoid without the height

geometry

How would I find the area of a non-iscoceles trapezoid and without the height? The trapezoid's bases are $30$ and $40$, and the legs $14$ and $16$. Thanks

Best Answer

Let $ABCD$ the trapezoid. The area can be partitioned in a triangle and a rectangle: enter image description here

Then the area of the triangle can be calculated by Heron's Formula, because the sides are $14, 16$ and $40-30=10$. $$[A_1D_1B_2]=\sqrt{s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)}=\sqrt{20\cdot 6 \cdot 4 \cdot 10}=40\sqrt{3}$$

Finally the height of the triangle is $$h=\frac{2[A_1D_1B_2]}{A_1B_2}=8\sqrt{3}$$

From here you are almost done.