Question

Angie has a square dog pen with a perimeter of 20 meters. She wants to put a diagonal piece of fencing inside her pen to cut it in half because her 2 dogs have been fighting. How long of a piece of fencing will she need to buy? Hint: The formula for finding the hypotenuse of a right triangle is: a² + b² = c²

Answer 1

Answer: 7.07 miles

Explanation:

Hi, to answer this, first, we have to find the length of the square dog pen.

Perimeter of a square = 4 x sides

Replacing with the value given:

20 = 4 s

Solving for s:

20/4=s

Side = 5 meters

Since the situation forms a right triangle (see attachment) we have to apply the Pythagorean Theorem:

c^2 = a^2 + b^2

Where c is the hypotenuse of the triangle (in this case length of the diagonal) and a and b are the other sides.

Replacing with the values given:

c^2 = 5^2 + 5^2

c^2 = 25+25

c^2 = 50

c = √50

c = 7.07 miles

Feel free to ask for more if needed or if you did not understand something.