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Pythagoras
Pythagoras
Pythagoras is used to find an unknown length of one of the sides of a right angled triangle given the two other sides. It is based on Pythagoras's theorem which states:
The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the remaining sides.
When the relationship between a, b and c (hypotenuse) is given in algebraic form it gives the formula:
can be re-arranged to
Worked example 1
Where hypotenuse is unknown and the remaining sides are given there is no need to re-arrange the formula.
or
substitute values
simplify
square root both sides
