Question

Donna wants to draw a right triangle. She wants the hypotenuse to be 1.5 inches long and one of the legs to be 1.2 inches long. Enter the length that she must use for the second leg to form a right triangle.

Answer 1

0.9 inches

Explanation:

The sides of right triangles follow the Pythagorean Theorem:

a² + b² = c²

"a" and "b" are the two shorter sides and "c" is the hypotenuse, the longest side.

Let's plug in what we know.

a² + b² = c²

(1.2)² + b² = (1.5)²

Let's solve the exponents.

1.44 + b² = 2.25

Subtract 1.44 from both sides.

b² = 0.81

Take the square root of both sides.

√b² = √0.81

b = 0.9

The second side will be 0.9 inches.