Hmmm...yes. I was thinking that showing, given legs x a b, that the triangle has a maximum area when x=a=b, and that proving this first was a necessary step to the problem. "Assume a perimeter of 30 and find the largest area.", can be done in the head, but I wan't to figure out how to prove it...
Show that the maximum area of a triangle corresponds to the triangle being equilateral.
I start by making y the height of the triangle and x a leg.
We have two formulas (for area)
A = xy/2
A = sqrt(s(s-a)(s-b)(s-x))
I'm thinking that in order to find the maximum, we must make dA/dx =...