Right triangle and the midpoint of the side opposite that vertex. This is because the right triangle's orthocenter, the intersection of its altitudes, falls on the right-angled vertex while its circumcenter, the intersection of its perpendicular bisectors of sides, falls on the midpoint of the hypotenuse. In any right triangle the diameter of the incircle is less than half the hypotenuse, and more strongly it is less than or equal to the hypotenuse times formula_44 In a right triangle with legs "a", "b" and hypotenuse "c", with equality only in the isosceles case. If the altitude from the hypotenuse is denoted "h",
Altitude (triangle) "dropping the altitude" at that vertex. It is a special case of orthogonal projection. Altitudes can be used in the computation of the area of a triangle: one half of the product of an altitude's length and its base's length equals the triangle's area. Thus, the longest altitude is perpendicular to the shortest side of the triangle. The altitudes are also related to the sides of the triangle through the trigonometric functions. In an isosceles triangle (a triangle with two congruent sides), the altitude having the incongruent side as its base will have the midpoint of that side as its