Answer:
The length of the other leg is 24 meters.
Step-by-step explanation:
Well, let's think about the equation that gives us the hypotenuse in the first place, the Pythagorean theorem (which only works on right triangles!).
[tex]a^2+b^2=c^2[/tex]
The a^2 is one side of the triangle that we know and the b^2 is the other, the c^2 is the hypotenuse we are trying to solve.
Seeing that in this question, we can put 10, in the place of a^2, and 26 in the place of c^2
[tex]10^2+b^2=26^2[/tex]
That's what we have down the information we have, but now we'll have to do some rearranging to solve for the other leg's length. First let's square the numbers, 10^2 = 100 and 26^2= 676!
[tex]100+b^2=676[/tex]
Now we need to get b^2 by itself so we can solve it! Let's subtract 100 from both sides to do so,
[tex]100-100+b^2=676-100[/tex]
[tex]b^2=676-100[/tex]
[tex]b^2=576[/tex]
Now we got b^2 = 576!
But that's not our answer we have to square root it to get rid of the squared part!
[tex]\sqrt{b^2} = \sqrt{576}[/tex]
and when we do that we get,
[tex]b=24[/tex]
The length of the other leg is 24 meters!
