"Published in Vacaville, California, USA"
A rectangular parcel of land is 50 ft wide. The length of a diagonal between opposite corners is 10 ft more than the length of the parcel. What is the length of the parcel?
Solution:
To illustrate the problem, it is better to draw the figure as follows
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| Photo by Math Principles in Everyday Life |
If a rectangle is cut by its diagonal, then the resulting figure is a pair of right triangles. By Pythagorean Theorem, we can solve for the value of x as follows
Therefore, the length of a rectangular parcel of land is 120 ft.