Question

Explain how to use the Pythagorran Theorm to find the missing length of a right triangle.

Answer 1

Let A and B be the length of the legs of a right triangle, and C be the hypotenuse.

Then, from the Pythagorean Theorem:

`C^2=A^2+B^2`

If the missing side is the hypotenuse C, then we can isolate it as:

`C=\sqrt[]{A^2+B^2}`

If the missing side is one leg, we can substract the length of the other leg from both sides and take the square root, so:

`\begin{gathered} A=\sqrt[]{C^2-B^2} \\ B=\sqrt[]{C^2-A^2} \end{gathered}`