Question

In a 30 60 90° triangle giving the short leg equals 5 find a hypotenuse of the triangle

Answer 1

To answer this question we need to remember that the longest and shortest side in any triangle are always opposite to the largest and smallest angle, respectively.

With this in mind we can draw the triangle:

Now, we need to find the hypotenuse. To do this we can use the cosine function for the angle 60. Remember that the cosine function is given as:

`\cos \theta=\frac{\text{adj}}{\text{hyp}}`

In this case we have that:

`\begin{gathered} \cos 60=\frac{5}{\text{hyp}} \\ \text{hyp}=(5)/(\cos 60) \\ \text{hyp}=10 \end{gathered}`

Therefore the hypotenuse is 10.