SOLUTION: The measures of the sides of a right triangle are those of a Pythagorean triple. If the measure of the shortest side is 17, what are the measures of the other two sides?
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-> SOLUTION: The measures of the sides of a right triangle are those of a Pythagorean triple. If the measure of the shortest side is 17, what are the measures of the other two sides?
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Question 276703: The measures of the sides of a right triangle are those of a Pythagorean triple. If the measure of the shortest side is 17, what are the measures of the other two sides? Answer by solver91311(24713) (Show Source):
The shortest leg in a PPT is always odd, so we know that . The other leg in a PPT is always 4 times a triangle number -- a triangle number being the sum of consecutive integers beginning at 1 and the th one being given by , which multiplied by 4 is . And the hypotenuse is always 1 larger than the long leg, so .
Since we know that , . Since , for the long leg and for the hypotenuse.
