Question

The legs of a right triangle are 12 centimetres and 16 centimeters. What is the length of the hypotenuse?

Answer 1

Answer:

20cm

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

So we can use the Pythagorean's Theorem to figure this out.

The Pythagorean's Theorem is: a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Basically, leg1 squared plus leg2 squared = hypotenuse squared

So the two legs are 12 and 16, so we can put them in the equation.

12^2 + 16 ^ 2 = hypotenuse ^2

Or,

144 + 256 = hypotenuse ^ 2

400 = hypotenuse ^ 2

Then we can do the square root of 400 to find the hypotenuse.

√400 = 20

The length of the hypotenuse is 20 centimeters.