SOLUTION: If a, b, and c are sides of a right triangle, which of the following are also sides of a right triangle? A. The square of each length. Or C. Twice the length?

Question 229722: If a, b, and c are sides of a right triangle, which of the following are also sides of a right triangle? A. The square of each length. Or C. Twice the length?
Answer by MLipsky(9) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Let's make up some numbers to try. What numbers could a right triangle have? Well, 3, 4, 5 is a common right triangle.

The "squares" of 3, 4, 5 are 9, 16, 25. What do you think? Try to draw it. On the first triangle, all the sides are pretty close to the same. (3 is more than half of 5). On the second triangle, the sides are really different. (9 is nowhere near half of 25). So, that doesn't work.

Let's try "twice the length": 6, 8, 10. Now, what do you think? All the sides look pretty close again. (6 is more than half of 10). That one works.

Incidentally, this is a property of "similar triangles": You can multiply all the sides by any number, and the triangle will get bigger, but it will still have the same shape (similar triangle).

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