Answered

Jeff designs a garden that is in the shape of a triangle . He has two lengths of the fence that are 19 feet long. He says he will be able to construct a fence to enclose the triangular garden with a third length of fence that is 8 feet long. Is Jeff correct or incorrect in his reasoning? Explain.



Answer :

sqdancefan

Answer:

  Jeff is correct

Step-by-step explanation:

You want to know if Jeff is correct when he claims he can use fence lengths of 19 ft, 19 ft, and 8 ft to enclose a triangular space.

Side lengths

The side lengths of a triangle must satisfy the triangle inequality. This requires the sum of any two sides exceed the length of the third side. Another way to say this is that any side length lies between the sum and difference of the other two side lengths.

If two sides are each 19 ft., the third side must lie between 19-19 = 0 ft and 19+19 = 38 ft. The third side length of 8 ft is in this range, so can be used to form a triangle.

Jeff is correct.