Jennifer, tricky question, but draw your rectangle and label it to help.
If we call the smaller side s, then the longer side is s + 14 and the diagonal is s + 16, because it's 2 inches longer than the longer side.
If you've drawn your rectangle, you'll see that the diagonal creates two right triangles, with the diagonal as the hypotenuse. We can use the Pythagorean theorem to find all the lengths.
s2 + (s + 14)2 = (s + 16)2
s2 + s2 + 28s + 196 = s2 + 32s + 256
s2 - 4s - 60 = 0
(s - 10)(s + 6) = 0
s - 10 = 0
s = 10
The longer side is 24.
s + 6 = 0
s = -6
Since length is not negative, this answer is out.
Hope this helps!
