Question

the perimeter of a triangle is 32 feet. One side of the triangle is 11 feet longer than the second side. The third side is 9 feet longer than the second side. Find the length of each side.

Answer 1

One side - 15 feet

Second side - 4 feet

Third side - 13 feet

Explanation:

Let's call the sides A B and C, respectively.

We know that:

A = B + 11

C = B + 9

and that

A + B + C = 32

Please note that we have 3 equations and 3 unknowns. We can solve this, we'll use substitution.

A + B + C = (B + 11) + B + (B + 9) = 32

3B + 20 = 32

3B = 12

B = 4

The sides have lengths of 4+11 = 15, 4 and 4+9 = 13. This is in fact a proper triangle (because the shorter sides add up to more than the longer side).