SOLUTION: One leg of a right triangle has length 7. The lengths of the other two sides are whole numbers. The length of the other leg is _____ and the length of the hypotenuse is ______.

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Question 938606: One leg of a right triangle has length 7. The lengths of the other two sides are whole numbers. The length of the other leg is _____ and the length of the hypotenuse is ______.

Please help, I'm clueless.

Answer by Edwin McCravy(20055)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Let the other leg = y and the hypotenuse = z 

Then by the Pythagorean theorem:









That expresses 49 as the product of two positive integers
with z-y less than z+y 

49 can be written as the product of two positive integers
in only 3 ways:

, , 

but only the first way has the first factor smaller than the second.

So



Solve that and get z=25, y= 24

So the right triangle has legs 7, 24, and hypotenuse 25. 

Edwin



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