The hypotenuse of a right triangle is 8 feet long. One leg is 4 feet longer than the other. Find the length of each leg to the nearest hundredth of a foot.

Answer 1

With a little bit of algebra, we can conclude that the three sides of the triangle are c = 8 feet (hypotenuse), a = x, and b = 4x. Using the pythagorean theorem (c² = a² + b²) and substitution, we are left with 64 = 16x² + x².

We can further simplify this equation to 64 = 17x². Solving for x, we are left with x = √64/17. Now we know that x = a ≈ 1.94 feet and b ≈ 7.76 feet.