SOLUTION: A right triangle has one side of length 7 and a hypotenuse of length 10. How long is the third side of the triangle?

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Question 839497: A right triangle has one side of length 7 and a hypotenuse of length 10. How long is the third side of the triangle?
Answer by josh_jordan(263) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
To solve this, we will need to use the Pythagorean equation: a^2 + b^2 = c^2, where a and b represent two sides of the triangle and c represents the hypotenuse. We are given the length of one side and the hypotenuse. We can replace a or b with 7 and replace c with 10:

(7)^2 + b^2 = (10)^2 ----->

49 + b^2 = 100

Next, we need to isolate b^2, so we will subtract 49 from both sides of the equation, giving us:

b^2 = 51

To find b, we need to take the square root of both sides of our equal sign. Normally, when we take the square root of a number on one side of our equal sign, will add the +- symbol. However, since the side of a triangle can never be a negative value, we will not have to do this. So, we are left with:

b=sqrt%2851%29

Therefore, the length of the other side of our triangle is sqrt%2851%29