Question

The perimeter of a scene triangle is 14.5 cm. The longest side is twice that of the shortest side. Which equation can be used to find the side lengths if the longest side measures 6.2cm?

Answer 1

`\huge\boxed{6.2 + ((6.2)/(2)) + x = 14.5}`

Explanation:

To create an equation for this, we have to note a couple of things.

• A scalene triangle has 3 different length sides
• All sides will add up to the perimeter (in this case 14.5)

We know that the longest side is 6.2 cm long. We also know that the longest side is twice the length of the shortest side. Therefore, the shortest side will be half the amount of the longest side.

Basically - we divide the longest side by 2 (6.2) so
`(6.2)/(2)`.

We don't know the third side. However, we know the total perimeter (14.5). Therefore, we can use a placeholder for the third side -
`x`.

Adding up all the sides, we have
`6.2 + ((6.2)/(2)) + x = 14.5`.

Hope this helped!