Cher takes a sheet of paper and cuts it from one corner to the opposite corner, making two triangles. If the piece of paper is 5 inches long and 4.5 inches wide, what is the perimeter of one of the triangles
+9479 Let the length of the hypotenuse in inches = h
Then by the Pythagorean theorem,
52 + 4.52 = h2
25 + 20.25 = h2
45.25 = h2
√[ 45.25 ] = h
The perimeter of a triangle is the sum of the length of all its sides. So...
perimeter in inches = 5 + 4.5 + √[ 45.25 ]
perimeter in inches = 9.5 + √[ 45.25 ]
perimeter in inches ≈ 16.227
