If ABDC be a parallelogram, of which AD is a diagonal, and if 0 be any point which, by joining
![](//static.cambridge.org/content/id/urn%3Acambridge.org%3Aid%3Aarticle%3AS1757748900001511/resource/name/S1757748900001511_eqnU1.gif?pub-status=live)
to A, B, C, D, makes three triangles, OAB, OAD, OAC, each of these being taken as positive in sign so long as O lies within the region selected (i.e. within ABD), then:
ΔOAC – ΔOAB = ΔOAD.