Question #0ea77

1 Answer
Jan 20, 2018

Knowing the leg with length 10 is the hypotenuse, then yes, it is as you put it.

Explanation:

If a is the hypotenuse (longest leg, opposite the right angle) of a right triangle, for the lengths of the other two legs, the pythagorean theorem states that a^2=b^2+c^2. In your case, the most likely answer is that the remaining leg is 6, as you described.

But there's a chance the remaining leg is actually the hypotenuse (if not already specified of course) in which case we would have that

x=sqrt(10^2+8^2)=sqrt(164)=2sqrt(41)

Don't let the above bother you as much, there's probably an implication somewhere in the problem that the leg of length 10 is the longest. Check if it's mentioned, or if it's the leg opposite the right angle.

EDIT: Noticing your question again, you actually said "the leg of a right angle"...so I guess you can disregard anything below the first paragraph.