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RE: "Singapore Math" : Square in Quadrant

in #steemstem7 years ago (edited)

I’m not sure if this works but I believe I found a slightly faster way to work out the answer

It states that WXYZ is a square meaning that the two sides that form the triangle WZY must (when squared) equal 14cm (196cm before square rooted).

Well, to find the area of a square, we square the side. In Pythagoras, we square both sides and then square root?

What’s the point in doing all this geometric adjustment when the answer is literally 1/2 of 14 squared? I know this because if 14^2 = 2x^2 (x being the side length a & b in Pythagoras’ theorem, but since we know they’re the same number, they can be represented as a like term, or x). If we simplify this down we get x = root 98. To find it’s area, we multiply root 98 by itself to get 98cm squared, which is the answer