2016 UNCO Math Contest II Problems/Problem 1
Problem
The sum of the lengths of the three sides of a right triangle is 56. The sum of the squares of the lengths of the three sides of the same right triangle is 1250. What is the area of the triangle?
Solution
Call the lengths of the legs of the triangle a and b. Call the length of the hypotenuse c. Then, by the Pythagorean Theorem,
From the problem statement, we also know that
By substitution, we have
Since c is positive,
. We are also given that
Substituting, we get
Therefore,
We also know that
Combining the two equations, we get that
Since the legs of a right triangle are perpendicular, the area of the triangle is
.
We can divide both sides of our equation by 4 to get this, which yields
See also
2016 UNCO Math Contest II (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by First Question |
Followed by Problem 2 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 | ||
All UNCO Math Contest Problems and Solutions |