Question

Find the Length of the missing side
drawing below

Answer 1

Is this supposed to be a right triangle?

Answer 2

Yes. xP

Answer 3

Lol okay :P

Alright so when you have a right triangle...and you want to find the missing side length...you want to use the pythagorean theorem

\[\large a^2 + b^2 = c^2\]

'a' and 'b' are the lengths of the 2 legs of the triangle...and 'c' is the length of the hypotenuse (longest side) of the triangle...

so here...1 leg would be 8
the hypotenuse will be 15
and the other leg is unknown...so we would have

\[\large 8^2 + b^2 = 15^2\]

make sense so far?

Answer 4

Yes :P

Answer 5

Great :P so lets solve that

\[\large 8^2 + b^2 = 15^2\]

we know 8^2 = 64
and we know 15^2 = 225

so we can write that

\[\large 64 + b^2 = 225\]

Let subtract the 64 from both sides of the equation

\[\large b^2 = 161\]

still good?

Answer 6

Yes. Thank you

Answer 7

And finally take the square root of both sides..

\[\large b = \sqrt{161}\]

And that is the length of the side we want :)

Answer 8

Thank you so much!

Answer 9

Anytime :)