Blanket squares are cut on the diagonal to form triangular blanket pieces the hypotenuse of the resulting triangle is 40 inches long what is the side length of each piece

Answer 1

To find the side length of each triangular piece, we need to use the Pythagorean theorem.

According to the Pythagorean theorem, the square of the hypotenuse (c) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (a and b).

In this case, the hypotenuse is 40 inches long. Let's assume one side of the triangular piece is 'a' inches long. The other side will then be 'b' inches long.

The Pythagorean theorem can be written as: c^2 = a^2 + b^2

In our case, this becomes: 40^2 = a^2 + b^2

We know that the square of 40 is 1600.

Now we need to solve for the side length of each piece, either 'a' or 'b'.

Let's assume 'a' is the shorter side. We can write the equation as: 1600 = a^2 + b^2

Now, we need more information to solve for the side length. Without any additional information, there are infinitely many solutions for a and b because this equation represents a circle of radius 40 centered at the origin on a coordinate plane. Hence, it is not possible to determine the side length of each triangular piece based on the given information.