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the larger leg of a right triangle is 7cm more than the smaller leg the hypotenuse is 17cm find each leg

User Aboubacar
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1 Answer

3 votes

Answer:

So the lengths of the legs are approximately 8.6 cm and 15.6 cm.

Explanation:

Let's call the smaller leg "x" and the larger leg "x + 7". According to the Pythagorean theorem, we know that:

x^2 + (x + 7)^2 = 17^2

Expanding the square on the left side and simplifying, we get:

2x^2 + 14x - 210 = 0

Dividing both sides by 2, we get:

x^2 + 7x - 105 = 0

Now we can solve for x using the quadratic formula:

x = (-7 ± sqrt(7^2 - 4(1)(-105))) / 2(1)

x = (-7 ± sqrt(649)) / 2

x ≈ -15.6 or x ≈ 8.6

Since we're dealing with lengths of sides in a triangle, we can't have a negative value for x. So we discard the negative solution and conclude that the smaller leg is approximately 8.6 cm.

To find the larger leg, we add 7 to x:

x + 7 ≈ 15.6 cm

User Loyda
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