MetaChat - Hello. How is everyone? ... GEOMETRY HELP? Thanks lol.

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28 October 2014

Hello. How is everyone? ... GEOMETRY HELP? Thanks lol. I'm building a small shelter for a feral cat who lives on my porch. I need to determine the length of the sides of the gable triangle of the peaked roof. →[More:]
It SHOULD be easy -- the roof triangle (that would be a truss or gable on a house) is an Isosceles right triangle. I only know the length of the base. What are the (equal) lengths of the legs?

I'm a math goof and the 'Net isn't helping...

post by: shane at: 10:17 | 7 comments

I guess I can figure it, since it's a small shelter, without math by drawing the length of the base on the piece of wood that I want to cut, then laying another piece of wood that has a right angle over the wood to be cut until the 2nd piece of wood lines up with the ends of the base-length line (on the 1st piece) and both sides of the 2nd piece of wood that form a triangle are equal lengths... LOL ...

... but I'm still curious, and eventually the formula would help for a larger shelter for which it's not so not practical to play with two pieces of wood laid over each other.

posted by shane 28 October | 11:06

The sides are A/sqrt(2) or (.707)A

posted by Obscure Reference 28 October | 11:13

Brilliant, O.R. Thank you!

posted by shane 28 October | 11:44

MetaFriends to the rescue :)

posted by shane 28 October | 11:48

Aww. I just missed my window of opportunity to use ancient high school knowledge to help somebody.

posted by jouke 28 October | 11:50

What Obscure Reference wrote .. means nothing to me. Admittedly it has been a long time since remedial math in high school but I don't think I ever knew what that means. (Skulks off in shame).

posted by Kangaroo 28 October | 16:38

Kangaroo, I was also puzzled for a second but if you click shane's link it's an image with triangle sides labelled A, B, C. So Obscure Reference was just pointing out how to calculate the (identical) length of B or C giving the length of side A.

posted by Firas 28 October | 17:13

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