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HELP ME PLEASE!

Please help me measure the diagonal of a triangle. so stressed. All I can tell u is that one side is 11 inches and the other 2 are 8 inches. It has a right angle. Please help!

User DDub
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1 Answer

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Sounds as tho' you have an isosceles triangle (a triangle with 2 equal sides). If this triangle is also a right triangle (with one 90-degree angle), then the side lengths MUST satisfy the Pythagorean Theorem.

Let's see whether they do.

8^2 + 8^2 = 11^2 ???
64 + 64 = 121? NO. This is not a right triangle.

If you really do have 2 sides that are both of length 8, and you really do have a right triangle, then:

8^2 + 8^2 = d^2, where d=hypotenuse. Then 64+64 = d^2, and

d = sqrt(128) = sqrt(8*16) = 4sqrt(8) = 4*2*sqrt(2) = 8sqrt(2) = 11.3.

11 is close to 11.3, but still, this triangle cannot really have 2 sides of length 8 and one side of length 11.
User Korchix
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