Question

the legs of a right triangle have lengths of 27 meters and 36 meters. the hypotenuse has a length of 5x meters what is the value of x

Answer 1

Hi there!

We can use pythagorean theorem to solve this problem here. The easiest way to go about solving this problem is to use the theorem to find the hypotenuse, then dividing it by 5 to find the value of x, since the hypotenuse is 5x.

WORK:
27^2 + 36^2 = h^2     (plugging into theorem)
729 + 1296 = h^2     (squaring the numbers)
h^2 = 2025              (adding the numbers together)
hypotenuse = 49    (taking the square root of 2025)
49/5 = x                 (dividing 49 by 5 to find x)
x = 9.8                  (dividing)

Hope this helps!! :)
If there's anything else that I can help you with, please let me know!