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The hypotenuse of a 45°-45°-90° triangle measures 18 cm. What is the length of one leg of the triangle?

User Eray Diler
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1 Answer

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Since one of the angles is 45 degrees, we can set up an equation to find the length of one of the legs.
sin45 = x / 18
x = 18sin45
x = 12.727 cm

Or you can just do 18 / √2 = 12.727
This is because 45-45-90 triangle for the sides is a, a, a√2. Hypotenuse is a√2 so that’s why we solved it as a√2 = 18 where
a = 12.727
User Robert Campbell
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