Louis wants to carpet the rectangular floor of his basement. the basement has an area of 588 square feet. the width of the basement is 1/3 its length. what is the length of louis' s basement?

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