Best Buy is selling 55 inch HD TV’s. This measurement is the diagonal distance across the screen. If the screen measures 48 inches in width, what is the actual height of the screen?

Question

Draw a picture:

Solve:

Answer 1

Using the Pythagorean Theorem, we can find the height of the screen.

Let the height of the screen be represented by h.

Using the Pythagorean Theorem:

h^2 + 48^2 = 55^2
h^2 + 2304 = 3025
h^2 = 721
h = √721
h ≈ 26.86 inches

Therefore, the actual height of the screen is approximately 26.86 inches.