SOLUTION: If the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is 24 meters and the length of one of its legs is 12 meters, find the length of the other leg. Round to the nearest tenth, if ne

Question 104465: If the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is 24 meters and the length of one of its legs is 12 meters, find the length of the other leg. Round to the nearest tenth, if necessary.
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
We basically have this triangle set up:

Since we can see that the triangle has legs of 12 and x with a hypotenuse of 24, we can use Pythagoreans theorem to find the unknown side.

Pythagoreans theorem:

where a and b are the legs of the triangle and c is the hypotenuse

Plug in a=12, b=x, and c=24. Now lets solve for x

Square each individual term

Subtract 144 from both sides

Combine like terms

Take the square root of both sides

Simplify the square root

Which approximates to...

So our answer is

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