Question

The perimeter of a right triangle is 36 cm. If one of the sides

is 4 cm, what are the other two sides.

Answer 1

15.75 cm and 16.25 cm

Explanation:

If one of the sides is 4 cm, and the perimeter is 36 cm, then the added length of the two remaining sides is 32 cm. The 4 cm cannot be the hypotenuse, since it can't be the largest side. Let 'h' be the hypotenuse and 'b' the remaining side, the following relationships can be written:

`4^2+b^2 = h^2\\b+h=32\\h = 32-b\\\\4^2+b^2 = (32-b)^2\\4^2+b^2 = 32^2+b^2 - 64b\\64b = 1,024-16\\b=15.75\\\\h=32-15.75\\h = 16.25`

The other two sides are 15.75 cm and 16.25 cm