Question

In a 45°- 45°- 90° right triangle, one of the legs is 1 inch. How long are the other two sides?

Answer 1

There are two possible answers depending on which leg is 1 inch:

Answer 2

Actually, a 45-45-90 triangle is isosceles (meaning that the legs are of the same length). If you label one leg by its length, 1, then the other leg automatically has the same length.

Answer 3

So each of the legs has length 1, and the hypotenuse has length ??????

Answer 4

That is true, a leg is not a hypotenuse. Good catch.

Answer 5

you would 1:1:\[\sqrt{2}\]

Answer 6

the hypotenuse is equal to the length of a leg times the square root of 2.

Answer 7

Stacey: You are correct, but instead of writing "the length of a leg," why not just write 1*Sqrt(2) = Sqrt(2)? That's the length of the hyp.

So, in summary, the 3 sides of the triangle are {1, 1, Sqrt(2).