The two shortest legs of a right triangle are 12 cm and 16 cm. What is the length of the longest leg?

Question

asked Sep 1, 2021 21.3k views

2 Answers

Shampoo · Answer 1 · 2021-09-03T08:08:32+0000

Answer:

The length of the longest leg is 20 cm.

Explanation:

Use the Pythagorean theorem to work this out; a² + b² = c².

If the two shortest legs (sides) are 12 cm and 16 cm, then the longest leg will be substituted by c.

Substitute 12 into a and 16 into b. The equation then becomes:

12² + 16² = c². Simplify this equation.

144 + 256 = 400.

Now, find the square root of 400 (c) because this answer is c in squared form.

√(400) = 20.

Hence, the length of the longest leg is 20 cm.