Special Right Triangles
If you’re a baseball fan, you know that home plate, first base, second base, and third base form the baseball “diamond.” But geometrically, a baseball diamond is actually a square.
The line segment from home plate to second base is a diagonal of the square. The diagonal of a square separates the square into two 45°-45°-90° triangles. This is an isosceles right triangle. An isosceles right triangle has the characteristic of both the isosceles and the right triangles. It has two equal sides, two equal angles, and one right angle. (The right angle cannot be one of the equal angles because the sum of the angles would exceed 180°.)
In a 30°-60°-90° triangles, the hypotenuse is twice the length of the shorter leg, and the longer leg is times the length of the shorter leg.
Find out more about special right triangles by reading the explanation below.
Practice: Use the properties of special right triangles in answering the exercises below.