Question

1. If I know the lengths of two sides of a right triangle, how do I find the third?
2. Could I find the two missing side lengths of a right triangle if I only know one side length and one angle measure (other than the 90 degree angle)?
3. Could I find the two missing angle measures if I know some of the side lengths of a right triangle?
4. What makes a triangle a “special” right triangle? How can special right triangles help me find side lengths?

Answer 1

1) Yes you could find the third side IF you knew it were 2 sides or 1 side and 1 hypotenuse.

Answer 2

I am trying to find the angles of the right triangle. I only have the three sides lengths and the 90 degree angle.

Answer 3

2) Yes you can find all the information of a right triangle just knowing one side and one angle. You would need to be familiar with the 6 trigonometric functions.

Answer 4

You have 3 side lengths? That makes it even easier.

Answer 5

I am slightly familiar with the six trig functions and SohCahToa. I just do not know which to use to find the angles.

Answer 6

Okay if you have the 3 side lengths I'll figure out the angles.

Answer 7

I need to know how to figure out how to do for my class. Someone else figuring it out for me would not help me.

Answer 8

I'll explain the whole thing. This site doesn't like people just giving out answers.
If you want I'll pick the 3 sides.

Answer 9

Let's suppose you have a right triangle and all 3 sides are known
5, 12 and 13 - now to find all the angles

Answer 10

Angle ACB is 90 degrees.
Tangent angle B = opp / adjacent
= 5 /12
= 0.4166666667
Now we look up the ARC TANGENT of that value to get the angle.
and that is 22.62 degrees.
We know 2 angles and since all 3 angles of a triangle sum to 180°
Angle CAB = 180° -90° - 22.62°
= 67.38°

Answer 11

OK. I found my problem. I was using my calculator wrong when finding the ARC TANGENT. I'll bump if I run into anymore problems of this nature. Thank you for your time.

Answer 12

okay thanks