Hypotenuse Hypotenuse In geometry, a hypotenuse is the longest side of a right-angled triangle, the side opposite of the right angle. The length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle can be found using the Pythagorean theorem, which states that the square of the length of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. For example, if one of the other sides has a length of 3 (when squared, 9) and the other has a length of 4 (when squared, 16), then their squares add up to 25. The length of the hypotenuse
Triangle inequality that the longest side length is less than the semiperimeter. A mathematically equivalent formulation is that the area of a triangle with sides "a", "b", "c" must be a real number greater than zero. Heron's formula for the area is In terms of either area expression, the triangle inequality imposed on all sides is equivalent to the condition that the expression under the square root sign be real and greater than zero (so the area expression is real and greater than zero). The triangle inequality provides two more interesting constraints for triangles whose sides are "a, b, c", where "a