Parts of a Right Triangle
In a right triangle, the sides that meet to form the
right angle are called the legs. The side opposite the
right angle is called the hypotenuse. The hypotenuse is
always the longest of the three sides. It is important
that you can correctly identify the sides of a right tri-
angle, regardless of what position the triangle is in.
leg
leg
60
1. Name the legs.
Practice
AABC is a right triangle.
TRIANGLES AND THE PYTH
hypotenuse
leg
leg
hypotenuse
hypotenuse
2. Name the hypotenuse.
leg
leg
APQR is a right triangle.
3. Name the legs.
4. Name the hypotenuse.
AHLM is a right triangle.
5. Name the legs.
6. Name the hypotenuse.
Review of Squares
and Square Roots
Before you study the Pythagorean theorem, le
first review squares and square roots. Just like add
tion and subtraction are inverses, so are squares
and square roots. In other words, they "undo" e
other. To square a number, you multiply it by itsel
For example, 52 means two factors of 5, or 5 times
5, which is 25. Written algebraically, it looks
this: 52= 5 x 5 = 25. A common mistake is to s
that you multiply by 2, since 2 is the exponent (the
small raised number). But the exponent tells you
how many times to multiply the base (bot
number) by itself.
Twenty-five is a perfect square. It can be writer
as the product of two equal factors. It would be he