SOLUTION: The length of a hypotenuse of a 45-45-90 degree angle is 16. What is the length of the leg?

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Question 542357: The length of a hypotenuse of a 45-45-90 degree angle is 16. What is the length of the leg?
Answer by neatmath(302) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

When dealing with right triangles you can always use Pythagorean's Theorem.

Or you can simply remember that the ratio of the sides of a 45-45-90 triangle is:

1%3A1%3Asqrt%282%29 with the hypotenuse being the longest leg of course.

In this case, we have:

x%3Ax%3A16

What number times the square root of 2 would give us 16?

In other words,

x%2Asqrt%282%29=16

x=16%2Fsqrt%282%29

x=%2816%2Asqrt%282%29%29%2F%28sqrt%282%29%2Asqrt%282%29%29

x=%2816%2Asqrt%282%29%29%2F2

x=8%2Asqrt%282%29 which is the exact answer.

I hope this helps!