Taj Mahal Trig

Question

The Taj Mahal in India is built on a square base with a diagonal of approximately 261.63 ft. Describe TWO methods that can be used to determine the side length of the base. To the nearest tenth of a foot, how many square feet is the area of the Taj Mahal? Round your final answer(s) to the nearest hundredth.

Answer 1

Since the base is a square and you have the length of the diagonal, you can use the fact that the diagonal equals the side length multiplied by the square root of two.

 

an alternative method (Pythag. theorem)  would be x² + x² = 261.63² and then solve for x.

 

once you find x, you can answer all of the questions here.