simple geometry problem

Won't answer because I've not completely sure I recall the formula.

Do it this way instead. Measure the diagonal distances between the two parallel sides of the square or rectangle. If the opposite sides are really parallel, the diagonals will be of the same length.

Thanks, roger. Will do!

Once again, my mother's husband provided the answer. He promptly quoted the pythagor-whatever and said the answer is the square root of 512.

On my calculator: 22.64

Amazing.

If two lines in a triangle are each 16 feet and form a right angle, how long will the third line be?

I guess you mean each leg is 16 ft. Then we are searching for the hypotenuse.

We can use this formula:

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Let a = 16 ft and let b = 16 ft

We are searching for c.

(16)^2 + (16)^2 = c^2

256 + 256 = c^2

512 = c^2

We now take the square root of both sides of the equation.

c is approximately 22.63 ft.

I rounded to two decimal places.

I hope this helps.

The square root of [a squared + b squared] = c squared

or add 16 x 16 to 16 x 16, then take that number
and find the square root of it - either by calculator, by an online calculator, or memory from fourth grade on how to square root manually.

I get 22.627416997969522 via an online square root calculator. And, to the right of the decimal x 12 = just about 7.5 inches.