One leg of a right triangle is 6 ft long. The hypotenuse is 12 ft long. What is the length of the second leg of the triangle? Round to the nearest tenth.
a)10.4 ft
b)9.6 ft
c)6.9 ft
d)13.5 ft***
I believe the answer is d, but can someone check it for me?
Actually, the answer is A. Use a calculator, it'll help find square roots, areas, other equations, etc.
oooh ok thank you!
it's clearly not D, since the hypotenuse is always the longest side.
To find the length of the second leg of the right triangle, you can use the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
Let's label the legs of the triangle as "a" and "b", with "a" being the given length of 6 ft and "b" being the unknown length of the second leg. The hypotenuse is labeled as "c" and has a length of 12 ft.
Using the Pythagorean theorem, we can write the equation:
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
Plugging in the given values:
6^2 + b^2 = 12^2
36 + b^2 = 144
b^2 = 144 - 36
b^2 = 108
To find the length of the second leg, we need to take the square root of both sides of the equation:
√(b^2) = √108
b = √108
b ≈ 10.4 ft
Therefore, the length of the second leg of the triangle is approximately 10.4 ft. The correct answer is option a) 10.4 ft.