The legs of a right triangle are 12 centimetres and 16 centimeters. What is the length of the hypotenuse?

15 centimeters

17 centimeters

20 centimeters

28 centimeters

The answer will be 15 centimeters

So we can use the Pythagorean's Theorem to figure this out.

The Pythagorean's Theorem is: a^2 + b^2 = c^2

Basically, leg1 squared plus leg2 squared = hypotenuse squared

So the two legs are 12 and 16, so we can put them in the equation.

12^2 + 16 ^ 2 = hypotenuse ^2

Or,

144 + 256 = hypotenuse ^ 2

400 = hypotenuse ^ 2

Then we can do the square root of 400 to find the hypotenuse.

√400 = 20

The length of the hypotenuse is 20 centimeters.