Question

A rectangular frame is being built for an artist's canvas. The finished canvas should have a length of 8 inches and a width of 15 inches. If the anglesin the corners of the canvas are true right angles, what should the length of the diagonal measure?Answer How to enter your answer (Opens in new window) 3 PointsKeypadKeyboard Shortcutsinches

Answer 1

$17$

1) In this problem, we need to sketch this out to get a grasp of it:

Note that that rectangle is divided into two triangles inside. Since the hypotenuse is also the diagonal of that rectangle, we can make use of the Pythagorean Relationship.

2) Therefore, we can write out:

$\begin{gathered} a^2=8^2+15^2 \\ a^2=64+225 \\ a^2=289 \\ \sqrt[]{a^2}=\sqrt[]{289} \\ a=17 \end{gathered}$

Thus, the length of that diagonal is 17 units