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Find the hypotenuse where relevant, give your answers to 3 significant figures.

Find the hypotenuse where relevant, give your answers to 3 significant figures.-example-1
User Ashish Aggarwal
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1 Answer

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9 votes

The Pythagorean Theorem states that for Right Triangles:


c^2=a^2+b^2

Where "c" is the hypotenuse (the longest side of the triangle), and "a" and "b" are the legs of the Right Triangle.

In this case, you can see that the exercise provides the length of the legs of the Righ Triangle, but you don't know the hypotenuse. Then, you can set up that:


\begin{gathered} a=6\operatorname{cm} \\ b=8\operatorname{cm} \end{gathered}

Therefore, you can substitute values into the equation that represents the Pythagorean Theorem and solve for the hypotenuse:


\begin{gathered} c^2=(6\operatorname{cm})^2+(8\operatorname{cm})^2 \\ c=\sqrt[]{(6\operatorname{cm})^2+(8\operatorname{cm})^2} \\ \\ c=\sqrt[]{100\operatorname{cm}^2} \\ c=10\operatorname{cm} \end{gathered}

Hence, the answer is:


c=10\operatorname{cm}

User Hubi
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