Xiao Hong uses a piece of rectangular paper with a length of 12cm and a width of 8cm to cut it into the largest triangle (as shown in the figure). What is the area of the paper (shadow part) cut off?

Xiao Hong uses a piece of rectangular paper with a length of 12cm and a width of 8cm to cut it into the largest triangle (as shown in the figure). What is the area of the paper (shadow part) cut off?

If the largest triangle area is half of the rectangle area, the remaining shadow is: 12 × 8 △ 2 = 48 square centimeters