Sum of areas of triangles formed from medians.

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The lengths of medians of the given triangle are used to form a second triangle ,then the medians of that one are used to form a third triangle, and so on. Find the sum of the areas of all the triangles in that sequence. Area of the original triangle is A.

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Let us give a simple geometric argument. Consider first the triangle $\Delta ABC$, draw its mass center $G$, the intersection of the medians, and then consider the parallelogram formed by the two segments $AG$ and $CG$, and the two parallel ones, $CM$ and $AM$ in the picture.

MSE problem 2996623

Now the medians divide the area of the triangle $\Delta ABC$ in six (area) equivalent pieces. (For instance, the median from $A$ divides the triangle in two equivalent pieces. Then $BG$ divides the one half in the proportion $2/3$ to $1/3$, which is the same proportion for $G$ dividing the median. The $2/3$ part of the half is now divided in two equivalent parts by the median from $G$ in $\Delta ABG$. There are many similar arguments.)

Let us denote by $A'$ the area of each of the six equivalent parts, $A=6A'$. Now the triangle $\Delta AGM$ is congruent to a triangle with sides $AG$, $BG$, $CG$, so similar to a triangle $\Delta A_1B_1C_1$, say, with sides congruent to the medians of the initial triangle, the
similitude factor being $2/3$. So $$ \operatorname{Area}(A_1B_1C_1) = \left(\frac 32\right)^2 \operatorname{Area}(AGM) = \left(\frac 32\right)^2 \cdot 2A' = \left(\frac 32\right)^2 \cdot 2\cdot \frac A6 =\frac 34A\ . $$ The same factor $q=\frac 34$ appears when passing to the "next triangle", and so on, so the problem wants us to compute the geometric sum $$ A\left(1+q+q^2+q^3+\dots\right)=A\cdot\frac 1{1-q}=4A\ . $$

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Use Herons formula.

Herons formula: $A=\sqrt{s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)}$, where $s= (a+b+c)/2$, where $a, b, c$ are the sides of the triangle. Substituting this, we realise that the area of each subsequent triangle is $\frac{3}{4}$ of the previous one!