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Printsmc
geometry senior
Problem
The medians of a right triangle which are drawn from the vertices of the acute angles are and . The value of the hypotenuse is:
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
We will proceed by coordinate bashing. Call the first leg , and the second leg (We are using the double of a variable to avoid any fractions) Notice that we want to find Two equations can be written for the two medians: and . Add them together and we get , Dividing by 5 gives Multiplying this by 4 gives , just what we need to find the hypotenuse. Recall that he hypotenuse is . The value inside the radical is equal to , so the hypotenuse is equal to
Final answer
D