SOLUTION: Hello, I need help with this: If the hypotenuse of a right triangle is 10 and one leg is 5, what is the length of the other leg? Thank you

Question 70763: Hello,
I need help with this: If the hypotenuse of a right triangle is 10 and one leg is 5, what is the length of the other leg?
Thank you
Answer by Earlsdon(6294) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Are you familiar with the "Pythagorean theorem"?
This is the theorem that shows the relationship among the three sides of a right triangle. In algebra, it looks like this:
where:
c is the length of the hypotenuse.
a and b are the lengths of the two legs.
So, if you are given the lengths of any two sides of a right triangle, you can find the length of the third side using the Pythagorean theorem.
Let's apply this to your problem.
The hypotenuse is given as 10 units, so c = 10
One leg is given as 5 units, so a = 5
Now substitute these values of c and a into the formula :
Simplify and solve for b.
Subtract 25 from both sides of the equation.
Now take the square root of both sides.
You really get two values when you take the square root of a number, a positive and a negative. But, because we are finding the length of a side of the triangle and length is a positive quantity, we can ignore the negative value.
The length of the other leg is:
units
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