Diagonal measurements.

[Cleveroldun]

Can anyone tell me how to calculate the diagonal measurement of a square and rectangle please.

[SeaJayPea]

Well, I could just say use a ruler, but that's obviously not a possibility so, using Pythagoras:

Take the length of each of the sides and square them (i.e. multiply them by themselves), add the two together, then get the square root of the total.

Examples:

A rectangle 4 inches by 3 inches. What you'd do is:
4 x 4 = 16
3 x 3 = 9
Total = 25
Sq root of 25 is 5, which is your answer

A square 5 inches by 5 inches
5 x 5 = 25
5 x 5 = 25
Total = 50
Sq root of 50 = 7.07107, which is your answer

At least, that's how I remember it!

Hope this helps you

Cheers

[derrynoose]

In the case of a square, just multiply the length of a side by the square root of 2.
..

[Cleveroldun]

Thanks very much, I've been trying to find out for years

[beso]

Pythagorases Theorem. The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.

a^2+b^2 = c^2

Most people think it originally written by a Greek called Pythagoras.

But it was predated by an American indian chief also coincidentally called Pythagoras. He had three wives who all gave birth on the same day.

The first wife had a daugher. Cheif Pythagoras was impressed and he lay this daughter on a buffalo hide.

The second wife also had a daughter. Equally impressed he lay her on a mountain lion hide.

The third wife was especially happy because she bore twin daughters. Chief Pythagoras was so impressed he got a hippopotomous hide all the way from Africa to place his twin daughters upon.

However he was still concerend at how he could remember which wives had which daughters. Suddenly he realised the solution.

The squa on the hippopotomous equals the sum of the squa on the other two hides.

;-)

[Cleveroldun]

Someone sent that to my mobile last week. Cheers anyway