To determine whether the corner of a shelf is actually a right angle, a carpenter uses a ruler and a pencil to make a mark at 3 inches along one side of the shelf and at 4 inches along the other. The carpenter takes a measurement and is satisfied that the corner is a right angle. What distance did the carpenter measure? Why does the carpenter's method work?
+33654 The carpenter measured the direct distance between the two marks he'd made. If the distance was 5 inches then the corner is a right-angle. This is because a right-angled triangle with the two legs having lengths 3 and 4 has a hypotenuse of 5. [5 = √(32 + 42)].
