A median of a triangle is a line segment from a vertex of a triangle to the midpoint of the opposite side of the triangle. The medians to the legs of a certain right triangle have lengths 13 and 19. What is the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle?
Let L1 be the length of one of the legs and L2 be the lentgh of the other.......and by the Pythagorean Theorem ,we have that
[L1]^2 + [(1/2)L2] ^2 = 19^2 and
[L2]^2 + [(1/2)L1]^2 = 13^2 simplify
L1^2 + (1/4)L2^2 = 361 (1)
L2^2 + (1/4)L1^2 = 169 (2)
Rearranging (1),we have
L1^2 = 361 - (1/4)L2^2 (3) and subbing this into (2),we have
L2^2 +(1/4)[ 361 - (1/4)L2^2 ] = 169 multiply through by 16
16L2^2 + 4*361 - L2^2 = 2704
15L2^2 = 2704 - 4*361
15L2^2 = 1260 divide by 15
L2^2 = 84 → L2 = 2sqrt(21)
And using (3), we have
L1^2 = 361 - (1/4)L2^2
L1^2 = 361 - (1/4)84
L1^2 = 361 - 21
L1^2 = 340 → L1 = 2sqrt(85)
So....the hypotenuse = sqrt (84 + 340) = sqrt (424) = 2sqrt (106)