Question

The length.of a hypotenuse of a right triangle is 32feet and the length of one of the lrgs is 18 feet. what is the length, to the nearest tenth of an inch, of the other leg of the triangle?

Answer 1

Use Pythagorean's Theorem to solve for the missing leg length.

$32^2-18^2=a^2$

with a being the length of the missing leg. Simplifying we have

$1024-324=a^2$

and

$a^2=700$. If we are told to express our answer to the nearest tenth of an inch, then we are simply plugging that into our calculator to get 26.45 or, rounded correctly, 26.5