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The medians of a right triangle that are drawn from the vertices of the acute angles have lengths of 2 square root 13 and square root 73. Find the lengths of the hypotenuse.
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Answer. The length of the hypotenuse is 10 units.
Solution
We will use this property of a median, which is valid for any triangle:
In a triangle with the sides a, b and c, the median drawn to the side c has the length = .
See the lesson The length of a median of a triangle in this site.
Next, let us apply the property to a right-angled triangle, whose legs are a and b units long and the hypotenuse is c units long.
For the medians and drawn to the legs a and b respectively, we will have
= , = .
Therefore,
+ = + = = .
Since for the right-angled triangle = , you can rewrite the above equality in the form
+ = = .
Now substitute the given data = and = . You will get
= = .
It implies = = .
Hence, c = 10.
The problem is solved.