Help homework #2

xsriel · #1 $Old$ November 13th, 2008, 04:06 PM

and sry about the last repost.

1. Twenty - nine is the shortest leg of a right triangle, whoes other leg and hypotenuse are consecutive whole numbers. What is the sum of the lengths of the other two sides.

im thinking the lengths are 29 30 and 31 so the answer would be 61. but i dont know if its that easy or theres something harder to it.

2. The positive square root of 200 is what percent larger than the positive square root of 121? Exspress ur answer to the nearest whole number.

topher0805 · #2 $Old$ November 13th, 2008, 04:29 PM

1.) Think about it algebraically. We know that the hypotenuse of a triangle can be found by this equation:

$a^2 = b^2 + c^2$

Where $a$ is the hypotenuse. We have been given one of the sides, so:

$a^2 = b^2 + 29^2$

Also, we have been told that $b$ is one less than $a$ . So, plug that in to get:

$a^2 = (a-1)^2 + 29^2$

You now have an equation with only 1 variable.

2.) This can be easily done with a calculator. Here are the steps:

Find the values for the two expressions.

Subtract the square root of 121 from the square root of 200 to find the difference.

Divide the difference by the square root of 121.