Question 674661: please help me with this question? sketch the right triangle and find the length of the side not given. if necessary, approximate the length to the nearest thousandth. leg=37,leg=28 what is the length of the side not given
Answer by solver91311(24713)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Use Pythagoras.
Do the arithmetic. Rounding to the nearest thousandth when the precision of the given values was to the nearest whole number is sublimely dumb. However, not following you teacher's instructions is even dumber, so I guess you are stuck. Use your calculator, then round the result to three decimal places.
The rule is that you never express the results of a calculation to a precision greater than the least precise input measurement data. The reason is that measurements are never exact. For example, when you say that the measure of one of the legs of your triangle is 38, you are only guaranteeing that the measurement is in the range  . Likewise, the other leg's measurement is only precise in the range  . It can then be shown that the missing leg must be in the approximate range  . As you should be able to tell, any decimal fraction precision on your answer actually adds nothing whatever to your body of knowledge regarding the true measure of the hypotenuse. Now, had the measurements of the legs been given as 28.000 and 37.000, THAT would be another story altogether.
John
Egw to Beta kai to Sigma
My calculator said it, I believe it, that settles it
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