SOLUTION: right triangles ABC has legs of lengths 4 ft and 7 ft. what is the length of the triangle's hypotenuse?

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Question 557594: right triangles ABC has legs of lengths 4 ft and 7 ft. what is the length of the triangle's hypotenuse?
Answer by neatmath(302) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

We can go directly to the Pythagorean Theorem on this one:

a%5E2%2Bb%5E2=c%5E2

where a and b are the legs of the triangle, and c is the hyptotenuse of the triangle.

Given legs of 4 ft and 7 ft, we have:

a%5E2%2Bb%5E2=c%5E2

4%5E2%2B7%5E2=c%5E2

16%2B49=c%5E2

65=c%5E2

c=sqrt%2865%29 or c=-sqrt%2865%29

Since we are talking about distances, we can ignore the negative solution.

Thus, our anwer is:

The length of the hypotenuse is exactly sqrt%2865%29 ft long.

This is approximately 8.06 ft, which makes sense given our triangle.

I hope this helps! :)

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