Question

Can you help me find the missing side of a triangle (and leave in radical form if needed)? Fan and medal to best answer.

Answer 1

this is the triangle

Answer 2

You'll need to find some angles in order to find the value of x. Do you know some basic trigonometry? Like SOH/CAH/TOA?

Answer 3

@matt101 Yes but my teacher said we needed to solve it through the geometric mean (i think thats what its called) which we don't need the angles for

Answer 4

Gotcha - I'll try to explain.

When you draw in the altitude of a right triangle, as has been done here, you divide that big right triangle into two smaller right triangles that happen to be similar to both each other AND the original big triangle.

Do you think you could solve this question now?

Answer 5

@matt101 I know how to draw the triangles and do all that its choosing which sides to compare and how to arrange them to get x that i don't really get

Answer 6

do one thing just label the diagram that will make it easy