Purchased 36 foot long piece of lumber. cut into three smaller pieces that measure: 8 1/4 feet, 3.5 feet, and 6 3/8 feet. how many feet of the original piece of lumber remains?

isocolese triangle

we know that the line connect a and b is the hyptonuse

so first find the hypotonuse length using the distance formula, call the length c

since it is an isocolese triangle, the lengths of the legs are the same

using pythagorean theorem,

in this case, a=b since isocolese triangle so we get

or

we can find c so we can find the distances

we know that if we draw 2 circles, each has center at a and b, and find where they intersect, we can the 2 possible locations for c

if a has center at (xa,ya) and b has center at (xb,yb), then we can solve where

and

intersect to find where they intersect

i'm not going to put an example because i have to go to class. i hope this explanation is enough