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imc

geometry intermediate

Problem

Right triangles and , have areas of 1 and 2, respectively. A side of is congruent to a side of , and a different side of is congruent to a different side of . What is the square of the product of the lengths of the other (third) sides of and ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
First of all, let the two sides which are congruent be and , where . The only way that the conditions of the problem can be satisfied is if is the shorter leg of and the longer leg of , and is the longer leg of and the hypotenuse of . Notice that this means the value we are looking for is the square of , which is just . The area conditions give us two equations: and . This means that and that . Taking the second equation, we get , so since , . Since , we get . The value we are looking for is just so the answer is .
Final answer
A