Kevin has a triangle table cloth with side lengths of 5 inches, 12 inches. He wants to cover a right angles triangle table with table cloth. Find if the cloth is appropriate for the table.
Can someone please help me. We are doing Pythagorean Theorem - I found the third side to be 11 inches and my answer would be yes?
well, a common right triangle is 5-12-13.
Not sure just how things are set up, since you just give two sides of the table cloth and don't say anything about the third side.
Thats because we are only given the story above and we are supposed to use the Pythagorean Theorem to figure out the third side. And then decide if the table cloth will be appropriate...I gave you everything I know.
To determine if the cloth is appropriate for the table, we need to consider whether the hypotenuse of the table (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to or less than the length of the tablecloth's longest side.
To use the Pythagorean theorem, we'll first calculate the length of the hypotenuse of the table.
The Pythagorean theorem states that in any right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (c) is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides (a and b).
So, if a = 5 inches and b = 12 inches, we can calculate the length of the hypotenuse (c) using the formula:
c^2 = a^2 + b^2
c^2 = 5^2 + 12^2
c^2 = 25 + 144
c^2 = 169
Taking the square root of both sides, we find:
c = √(169)
c = 13 inches
The length of the hypotenuse is 13 inches. Now let's compare that to the length of the longest side of the tablecloth, which is 12 inches.
Since the length of the tablecloth's longest side (12 inches) is equal to the length of the hypotenuse (13 inches), the cloth is appropriate for the table.