In a standard television set, the screen height is 0.75 times the screen width. If a television set measures 20 inches along the diagonal, what is the screen width?

Answer 1

The height, width and diagonal form a right triangle, with width and height being the legs and the diagonal being the hypotenuse.

Let w = width

we are told height = 0.75 * width or 0.75w

Using the Pythagorean theorem

w^2 + (0.75w)^2 = 20^2

w^2 + 0.5625w^2 = 400

1.5625w^2 = 400

w^2 = 256

w = 16