Question

Arturo is building a flower bed in the shape of a right triangle. The hypotenuse of the right triangle is 13 feet. One of the legs needs to be 7 feet longer than the other leg.
Which equation can be used to find x, the length of the shorter leg?

Answer 1

Here is my answer:

If one leg is x.

Then the other legs need to be longer than 7, so it is (x + 7)



x² + (x +7)² = 13²

x² + (x +7)² = 169

So I believe that is the equation.

From the Pythagorean triple of 5, 12, 13, one should and would know that if the equation above is solved, x = 5.