Lengths of a rectangle.

curtz91 · #1 Jul 15, 2009, 03:38 PM

The length of a rectangle is 7m more than the width. The length of a diagonal is 13m. Find the length.

YoungHyperLink · Jul 15, 2009, 03:51 PM

Sorry, we can't do your homework for you! Do you know what rules to use?

ZoeMarie · Jul 15, 2009, 04:12 PM

Do you know how to find the length of sides of a triangle? because basically that's what you're doing? I don't want to do your homework for you either, but you would have your one side (the diagonal) 13m, one side n meters and another side n+7 meters. Do you know how to solve this? If it's a rectangle you know you're dealing with 90 degree angles. Check out this site

http://www.gcseguide.co.uk/sin,_cos,_tan.htm

edit: don't listen to me... I get confused. I've been helping my husband with his math homework but the stuff he needed help with was sin cos and tan so that's drilled in my head right now.

Perito · Jul 15, 2009, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curtz91

The length of a rectangle is 7m more than the width. The length of a diagonal is 13m. Find the length.

Use the Pythagorean theorem: Pythagorean theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Set up an expression for the length of each of the sides. Plug the expression into the Phthagorean equation. You know the length of the diagonal, so you can plug it into the theorem directly. Solve for the length of the width.