One side of a rectangular stage is 2 meters longer than the other. If the diagonal is 10 meters, then what are the lengths of the sides?

Question

1327 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-12-23T15:38:32

6 metres and 8 metres

Let the length of 1 side be #x#
Then the length of the other is #x+2#

The diagonal is given as 10 metres long

So we have a triangle. Using Pythagoras:

#x^2+(x+2)^2=10^2#

#2x^2+4x+4=100#

Divide through out by 2

#x^2+2x+2=50#

#x^2+2x-48=0#

#(x-6)(x+8)=0#

#x=6" and "x=-8# are solutions

It is not logical to have a negative value as a length of the rectangle

So the sides are of length #" "6" metres & "6+2=8" metres"#