Question

Can someone help me with this question?

State the Pythagorean Theorem and tell how you can use it to solve problems

Answer 1

Hello, the Pythagorean Theorem states: the sum of the squares made on the sides is equivalent to the square made on the hypothenuse.

What does it mean? It may help you to draw a right triangle and to draw a square for each side. You can see that the sides of the triangle are the sides of the squares.

Then, if we sum the area of the squares on the sides (because they are equivalent = same area) we get the are of the square on the hypothenuse.

Call "a" and "b" the squares on the sides and "c" the squares on the hypothenuse.

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Where can this Theorem be used? Of course, where you have to deal with geometry problems, in particular right triangles, rectangles and many more.

For example, we have to find the hypothenuse of a right triangle.


Let's follow the formula and we have that a = 4, b = 3...what's c?

4^2 + 3^2 = c^2

16+9 = c^2

25 = c^2

So, c^2 is 25.

We have c^2 but not c, so how do we solve it?

Simple, do the square root, c = square root of 25 = 5

Of course there are even inverse formulas:

a^2 = c^2 - b^2
b^2 = c^2 - a^2

Answer 2

The Pythagorean Theorem is
`a^(2) + b^(2) = c^(2)`

You can use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the hypotenuse. For example lets say you have one side (a) equal to 3 and the other side (b) equal to 2. From there you can plug it in and find that the hypotenuse (c) is equal to 3.61