document.write( "Question 878714: The area of a right triangle is 84 cm2. If four times length of one leg is 3 cm longer than the length of the hypotenuse, what are the measures of the three sides?
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Algebra.Com's Answer #530239 by KMST(5328)\"\" \"About 
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GUESS AND CHECK STRATEGY:
\n" ); document.write( "If you are not that deep into algebra and calculus, you are expected to try whole numbers for the lengths of the sides in centimeters.
\n" ); document.write( "The area given is a clue. It is related to the product you get by multiplying the legs' lengths in centimeters.
\n" ); document.write( "For a right triangle, you can take the length of one leg as the base, and the length of the other leg as the height, so
\n" ); document.write( "\"area\"\"%22=%22\"\"%28leg%5B1%5D%29%28leg%5B2%5D%29%2F2\"
\n" ); document.write( "\"%28leg%5B1%5D%29%28leg%5B2%5D%29%2F2=84\" --> \"%28leg%5B1%5D%29%28leg%5B2%5D%29=84%2A2\" --> \"%28leg%5B1%5D%29%28leg%5B2%5D%29=168\"
\n" ); document.write( "We look for pairs of factors of \"186\" that could be the legs' lengths in centimeters.
\n" ); document.write( "We know that \"186=2%2A84=2%2A7%2A12=2%2A7%2A2%2A2%2A3=2%5E3%2A3%2A7\"
\n" ); document.write( "\"186=7%2A%282%2A12%29=7%2A24\" sounds like a good possibility, because a hypotenuse so much longer that the \"one leg\" means that the other leg must also be much longer than the \"one leg\".
\n" ); document.write( "In a right triangle with legs measuring \"7\" and \"24\" , the hypotenuse measures
\n" ); document.write( "\"sqrt%287%5E2%2B24%5E2%29=sqrt%2849%2B576%29=sqrt%28625%29=25\"
\n" ); document.write( "Is \"four times\" \"7\" \"3 more than\" \"25\" ?
\n" ); document.write( "YES. \"4%2A7=28=25%2B3\"
\n" ); document.write( "So the lengths of the sides are \"highlight%287cm%29\" , \"highlight%2824cm%29\" , and \"highlight%2825cm%29\" .
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\n" ); document.write( "Another way (no calculations involved, but your teacher may consider it cheating) would be to look up a list of Pythagorean triples. Those are sets of whole numbers that could be the lengths of the sides of a right triangle. (The squares of the first two numbers add up to the square of the third number).
\n" ); document.write( "One of those triples is 7 24 25, and it is the only one where 7 appears as a factor, and the two first numbers are factors of 186.
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\n" ); document.write( "NOT GUESS AND CHECK?
\n" ); document.write( "Then you may have to start writing equations and may loose sight of the triangle issue.
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