The length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is 157 units. The length of one leg of the triangle is 132. Lara wrote the following step to find the length of the unknown leg: Length of the unknown leg = 1572 - 1322 = 24,649 - 17,424 = 7,225 units Which statement best explains whether Lara's step is correct or incorrect?

Question

Natalia Chen

Mathematics

21 November, 16:22

The length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is 157 units. The length of one leg of the triangle is 132. Lara wrote the following step to find the length of the unknown leg: Length of the unknown leg = 1572 - 1322 = 24,649 - 17,424 = 7,225 units Which statement best explains whether Lara's step is correct or incorrect?

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Answers (1)

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Amiya Patterson · Answer 1

A^2 + b^2 = c^2

132^2 + b^2 = 157^2

17424 + b^2 = 24,649

b^2 = 24,649 - 17424

b^2 = 7225

b = square root 7225

b = 85 < = = the missing leg is 85 units

Lauras step is correct ... she rearranged the formula making it:

b^2 = c^2 - a^2 ... and subbed in numbers correctly. She just didn't finish