what is the perimeter of a rectangle with a length of 5 inches?

Question

what is the perimeter of a rectangle with a length of 5 inches?

Answer 1

To get the perimeter of any polygon, all we have to do is add up the lengths of all the sides. In this instance, we have a rectangle with a given side of 5 inches. Unfortunately, this isn't enough information to solve this problem completely. We know that opposite sides of a rectangle have the same length, so two of the sides are 5 inches, but we don't know the length of the other 2 sides, so I will write the length of one of the unknown sides as x. So to find the perimeter, we add up all the sides:

 

P = 5+5+x+x = 10 + 2x

 

Until we know the length of x, then we won't be able to find the exact perimeter of the rectangle.

Answer 2

Nadia S.' comment is correct. The variable cannot be rid of if the width of the rectangle is unknown.