Question

A right triangle has an area of 18 square inches.If the triangle is an isosceles triangle, what are the lengths of the legs of the triangle?

The length of each leg is.......inches.

Answer 1

If it is isosceles, than the legs are the same. We will call them X. The formula for the area of a triangle is 1/2 (base * height). But the base and the height are both X. So the area (18) is equal to 1/2 (x * x), or 1/2(x^2). This means that 36 = x^2. Thus, the length of each side is 6 inches. You can check this work by plugging those into the formula for area. You will find that it equals 18.