Question

A right triangle has a hypotenuse of length 15 and a leg of length 9. What is the length of the other leg of the triangle?

Answer 1

The other leg is 12 units long, am I right?

Answer 2

@Shane_B

Answer 3

A^2+b^2 = c^2

first see the variable you know. We know the Hypotenuse (C) and one leg (A or B, we'll say it's A for this example)

Now take this and put it into the theorem above and you get
11^2 + B^2 = 15^2

now isolate B which means subtract the square of 11 (121) from the side that B is on and get b^2 = 15^2 + 11^2

which means B^2 = 225 +121
now add like terms (225 and 121) to get B^2 = 346

square root each side to get B = 18.60 (approximately) now you have the length of the other side.

Now put what you know into the formula for the area of a triangle which is A = 1/2BH

Area equals half the product of B and H. This formula only goes for A right triangle... I think... do the rest yourself good luck.

EDIT =-------
Sorry I did some of the work wrong but you get the idea, instead of subtracting 121 from 225 I added it but whatever I gave you the formula and operations you should be able to do it yourself :)

Answer 4

A=83.7?

Answer 5

@MajicMuzyk

Answer 6

Yes.

Answer 7

Thank you so much for the explanation!

Answer 8

Your Welcome