If the sides of a swuare ae lengthened by 7 cm, the area becomes 144 cm^2. Find the lenght of a side of the original square. I come up with 29 cm for the answer but not sure if this is correct. Can you help me with this. I thank you in advance for all your help.
No, the length of a side of the original square was only 5 cm.
We start with this little square with 5 cm on a side:
and then if we increase the sides by 7 cm each, we get
this large square, which we can easily see has an area
of 144 little square centimeters.
Here is how to work it out:
Let x cm be the length of a side of the original square.
Then when we increase the length of a side by 7 cm, each
side will then be x+7 cm. Then we use the formula for
the area of a square,
Take square roots of both sides:
Subtract 7 from both sides
So the original square was 5 cm om a side.
Edwin