SOLUTION: Hi, trying to help my son grd 8 solve a question the hypotenuse of a right triangle is square root of 18....what are the lenghts of the legs of the triangle ?? that is all the i

Question 498590: Hi, trying to help my son grd 8 solve a question
the hypotenuse of a right triangle is square root of 18....what are the lenghts of the legs of the triangle ??
that is all the info we are given.
Answer by Earlsdon(6294) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
You must have been given more information about the right triangle.
Look!
In this case, so . Now we have:
This equation has an infinite number of solutions unless you place some restrictions on a and b.
Let's assume the the numbers a and b must be integers (not an unreasonable assumption), then a and b can only take on the values of and , so you'd get:
or

This implies that the triangle is an isosceles right triangle.
No other integers for a and b would work.

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