How to find the side length of a right triangle
Working with the sides and angles of a triangle is an important part of learning mathematics and geometry. A right triangle is that type of triangle that has an angle of 90 degrees, that is, that its two shorter sides are perpendicular to each other. When in a right triangle, you know the exact length of two of its sides you can use the so-called Pythagorean theorem to determine and calculate the length of the missing side. Take note because we show you how to do it in the following article from.
- Calculator
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First, you must determine if it is possible to find the length of the side of the missing triangle. First, the triangle must be a rectangle that is to say that it has an angle of 90º and in addition you must know at least the length of two of the sides to be able to use the Pythagorean theorem. In the event that these requirements are not met, you will not be able to use the formula shown below.
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First, we advise you to write the Pythagorean theorem, which states that the sum of the squares of the shortest sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the longest side of it.
For you to visualize it, the formula is the following: a² + b² = c², with "a" and "b" being the shorter sides, and "c" being the longest (the diagonal or the so-called hypotenuse).
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Fill in the information that you know in the equation. Connect the side that you know to the corresponding letters of the equation. The value of "c" will always correspond to the largest face, but if you know the length of a shorter side, it can be replaced by "a" or "b".
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Now what you have to do is calculate the square of the sides you know, in this case we know that a = 2 and that c = 5 (2² + b² = 5²). Therefore, if we calculate the square of 2 and 5, the equation would look like this: 4 + b² = 25.
The next step is to solve the equation in such a way that if we subtract 4 from 25, we know that b² = 21.
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Finally, you only have to calculate the square root of the number you obtained when solving the equation, that is, in this case of 21. To carry out this step, it is advisable to use a calculator, since the answer will probably not be a whole number
Using the previous example of b² = 21, calculate its square root and you will obtain as a result that b = 4, 58257569, this value being the answer to the problem of finding the length of the side of the right triangle that you lacked at the beginning.
