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A rectangle has vertices located at (–4, 4), (2, 4), (2, –4) and (–4, –4). What is the length of a diagonal of the rectangle?

User Jeanmartin
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1 Answer

17 votes
17 votes

Answer:

A diagonal of this rectangle has length 10.

Explanation:

The vertices (-4, 4) and (-4, -4) have the same x-coordinate (-4) and different y-coordinates (4 and -4). These two points are the endpoints of a vertical side of the rectangle which has length 4 - (-4) = 8.

Similarly, the vertices (2, -4) and (-4, -4) have the same y-coordinate (-4) but different x-coordinates (2 and -4). To find the horizontal dimension of the rectangle, we calculate 2 - (-4), which comes out to 6.

Thus, the width of the rectangle is 6 and the length is 8.

Using the Pythagorean Theorem, we find the length of a diagonal as follows:

d = √(6^2 + 8^2) = √(36 + 64) = √100 = 10.

A diagonal of this rectangle has length 10.

User Heroic
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