When an altitude is drawn to the hypotenuse of a right triangle, the lengths of the segments of the hypotenuse are 16 and 25. What is the length of the altitude?

Question

anonymous · Answer

$$altitude=\sqrt{segment a*segment b}$$

anonymous · Answer

So it's 20?

anonymous · Answer

i believe so i'm not 100%; i had to look up this on a site for the formula but i'm pretty sure that is the answer

anonymous · Answer

Ok thanks. :)

stormfire1 · Answer

Unless I'm reading it wrong it really should be $$\sqrt{segment_a^2+segment_b^2}$$

anonymous · Answer

http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emt668/emat6680.folders/brooks/6690stuff/righttriangle/rightday3.html

stormfire1 · Answer

I guess you're probably right...I thought it was really just asking for the length of the hypotenuse.

anonymous · Answer

nah it's asking for the altitude, tbh i didn't have an idea how to answer this question until i found the formula lol