User:SeanNugent
Homework 12 Essay
Hi my name is Sean Nugent. I'm a first year student at UBC and I'm currently in the Faculty of Arts and wanting to switch into the Faculty of Human Kinetics for next year.
The Pythagorean theorem is a mathematical process of finding the area or the length of the sides of a right angle triangle. To find the length of the sides of the triangle you follow the equation a^2+b^2=c^2. This equation means that the combined length of the 2 shorter legs of the triangle(a and b) are equal to the length of the hypotenuse(the side opposite the angle in the right triangle)(c). Lets try to look at this theorem in practical terms. Lets say that you want to know how long of ladder you have to buy in order for you to get to your roof. First you would measure how high the roof is(which would be first leg of the triangle), and then measure how far away you want to lean your ladder on the ground(which is the second leg of the triangle). Then by combining these two measurements squared and then square routing the answer you would get the length of the ladder needed to get onto the roof(which would be side c of the triangle).