Ms Oldfield tells you that a right triangle has a hypotenuse of 13 and a leg of 5. She asks you to find the other leg of a triangle. What is your answer

Answer 1

We can use the Pythagorean theorem to find the other leg of the triangle. The Pythagorean theorem states that for a right triangle with legs of length a and b and hypotenuse of length c, the following equation holds: a^2 + b^2 = c^2.

Here, we have a hypotenuse of length 13 and one leg of length 5. Let the other leg have length x. Then we can write the equation:

5^2 + x^2 = 13^2

25 + x^2 = 169

x^2 = 144

x = sqrt(144)

x = 12

So the other leg of the triangle has a length of 12.