This week in Math, I learned how to find the measure of an angle of a right triangle with two side lengths. First you need to need to label the triangle sides relative to the angle you are trying to find. The hypotenuse is the longest side. The adjacent is the side next to the angle that isn’t the hypotenuse. The opposite is the side opposite of the angle. Next, with the two side lengths you are given, you need to find the trigonometric function that works with the side lengths you are given. sin=opposite/hypotenuse, cos=adjacent/hypotenuse, and tan=opposite/adjacent.

As you can see in this example, we are given the side lengths of opposite and adjacent, therefore, we use tan=opposite/adjacent. We know that in this example, opposite=9.7 and adjacent=5.2. So in our calculator we would type in then press “=”. The answer we get should be something like 61.80502… which would round to 62, so our answer would be , and that is how you find the measure of an angle of a right triangle with only two side lengths.