Can you help me find the length of the hypotenuse?

Question

The length of one leg of a right triangle is 12 meters and the length of the other leg is 9 meters. Find the length of the hypotenuse.

Answer 1

Hi Kassy,

 

Here there is simply to apply the Piytagoras Theorem which establishes  that in a right angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two other sides.

 

c2= a2+b2, this is the typical formula where c is for hypotenuse.

 

The hypotenuse, the longest of the sides of a right triangle is given as resolution from this formula:

 

c= Radical of the sum of the squares of the two given lengths, and which result in :

 

c= Radical of 144 (square of 12) + 81 (square of 9)

 

c= Radical of 225 which is equal to 15.

 

The length of the hypotenuse is therefore 15 meters.

 

I hope this can help.

 

Maria