The perpendicular bisectors of the sides of a triangle are concurrent (they intersect in one common point). The point of concurrency of the perpendicular bisectors of the sides is called the circumcenter of the triangle. The point of concurrency is not necessarily inside the triangle. It may actually be in the triangle, on the triangle, or outside of the triangle.
Notice that the perpendicular bisectors of the sides of the triangles do not necessarily pass through the vertices of the triangles.
NOTE: The point of concurrency of the perpendicular bisectors of the sides of a triangle (the circumcenter) is the center of a circumscribed circle about the triangle. |
A circumscribed circle is a circle around the outside of a figure passing through all of the vertices of the figure. In this case, passing through the three vertices of the triangle. Since the radii of the circle are congruent, a circumcenter is equidistant from vertices of the triangle.