Question

given a special right triangle with angle measuring 45-45-90, what is the length of the side opposite to 45, if the side opposite 90 is 14. you can write your answer in decimal form

Answer 1

Lets draw a picture:

since we have a right triangle, we can apply a trigonometric function. If we choose cosine function, we have

$\cos 45=\frac{a}{14}$

then a is given by

$a=14\cos 45$

since cos45=0.7071, we get

$a=14(0.7071)$

then, the answer is a = 9.899