Question

A square is cut in half on the diagonal creating two equal triangles each triangle has an area of 0.72 square units what is the side length in units of the original square?

Answer 1

In a square all 4 sides are equal, so when you cut it along the diagonal to make a triangle, both the base and the height of the triangle would be the same.

The area of a triangle is found by the formula 1/2 x base x height

Since the base and height are the same the formula becomes Area = 1/2 x S^2 ( where S is the length of a side).

The area is given as 0.72 square units.

Now you have 0.72 = 1/2 x S^2

First multiply both sides by 2:

1.44 = S^2

To find S, take the square root of both sides:

S = √1.44

S = 1.2

The side length is 1.2 units.