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The Pythagorean Therom is used to find the missing
length of one side of a right triangle when the other two sides
are known. The Hypotenuse is the side opposite the right
angle. |
| The Pythagorean Theorem's formula states that the
length of one known squared plus the length of the other side
squared equals the length of the unknown side squared, where the
respective lengths of the known sides are a and b and the length
of the unknown side is c. |
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The sides are labeled as a, b, and c. |
| The formula a2 + b2 = c2 is used here. The
squares of the known sides are added. Then the square root
is found of that value. This value equals c. |
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Example: If a equals 4 and b equals 3, these
are squared separately and then added together. The square
root of this value, 25, is 5, c. |
| Hint: If the unknown side is some other side
other than the hypotenuse. The formula must be changed to
either c2 - a2 = b2 or c2 - b2 = a2
depending on which side is unknown. |
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