Find the unknown length in the triangle. 15cm and 18cm

answer

d. 10

explanation

the distance from point y to wx is the height of the triangle.

using pythagoras theorem,

group similar terms to get,

this implies that,

take positive square root of both sides to get,

this implies that,

1 number

if we use a graphing calculator, there is only one such number that satisfies the conclusion of the mean value theorem, that is, a number such that

where the right-hand side is the average rate of change of f on the interval [0.5,0.75], which is the slope of the secant line.

in the attached graph, the black line is the secant line which has its slope as the average rate of change of f on [0.5,0.75], while the orange line is the only tangent line to the graph of f in the interval that satisfies the mvt conclusion.