Question

The hypotenuse of a right triangle is 17.One of the legs is 8.Find the length of the other leg.

Answer 1

We can use pythagorean theorem to solve for this triangle.

Let , length of other leg of the triangle be "x".

Pythagorean Theorem tells us:

`a^2+b^2=c^2`

where c is the hypotenuse, a and b are the legs

From the question, we can thus write:

`8^2+x^2=17^2`

We can solve for x:

`\begin{gathered} 8^2+x^2=17^2 \\ 64+x^2=289 \\ x^2=289-64 \\ x^2=225 \\ x=\sqrt[]{225} \\ x=15 \end{gathered}`

So, the other side of the triangle is 15