Question

How would I use the Pythagorean Theorem to determine if a triangle with sides measuring the following is a right triangle: `8, 5, 9`?

Answer 1

The way to check if the triangle is right is to check if `9^2=8^2+5^2`

Explanation:

According to Pythagorean Theorem A triangle is right-angled if and only if `c^2=a^2+b^2`, so to check if a triangle is right-angled you have to check if the square of the longest side is equal to sum of squares of 2 other sides.

So we check if:

`9^2=5^2+8^2`

`L=81`

`R=25+64=91`

`L!=R`

Since `L!=R` we can say that this triangle is not right-angled.