Question

find the measure of the shorter leg of a right triangle if the longer leg is 12 feet and the hypotenuse is 15 feet

Answer 1

To solve this, you can use the Pythagorean Theorem. a^2 + b^2 = c^2, where a and b are the lengths of the legs and c is the length of the hypotenuse. Substituting values in gives you 12^2 + b^2 = 15^2. Then you can solve. 144 + b^2 = 225 b^2 = 81 b = 9

The shorter leg is 9 ft