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A right triangle ABC with its right angle at C, hypotenuse c, and legs a and b,. A right triangle or right-angled triangle, sometimes called an orthogonal triangle or rectangular triangle, is a triangle in which two sides are perpendicular, forming a right angle (1 ⁄ 4 turn or 90 degrees).
Set square shaped as 45° - 45° - 90° triangle The side lengths of a 45° - 45° - 90° triangle 45° - 45° - 90° right triangle of hypotenuse length 1.. In plane geometry, dividing a square along its diagonal results in two isosceles right triangles, each with one right angle (90°, π / 2 radians) and two other congruent angles each measuring half of a right angle (45°, or ...
The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular separation (in units of angle) describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences , it is called the visual angle , and in optics , it is the angular aperture (of a lens ).
A degree (in full, a degree of arc, arc degree, or arcdegree), usually denoted by ° (the degree symbol), is a measurement of a plane angle in which one full rotation is 360 degrees. [4] It is not an SI unit—the SI unit of angular measure is the radian—but it is mentioned in the SI brochure as an accepted unit. [5]
The straight lines which form right angles are called perpendicular. [8] Euclid uses right angles in definitions 11 and 12 to define acute angles (those smaller than a right angle) and obtuse angles (those greater than a right angle). [9] Two angles are called complementary if their sum is a right angle. [10]
In China, Pei Xiu (224–271) identified "measuring right angles and acute angles" as the fifth of his six principles for accurate map-making, necessary to accurately establish distances, [5] while Liu Hui (c. 263) gives a version of the calculation above, for measuring perpendicular distances to inaccessible places.
Mathematically, this can be written as + =, where a is the length of one leg, b is the length of another leg, and c is the length of the hypotenuse. [2] For example, if one of the legs of a right angle has a length of 3 and the other has a length of 4, then their squares add up to 25 = 9 + 16 = 3 × 3 + 4 × 4.
The Pythagorean theorem can be used as the basis of methods of constructing right angles. For example, by counting links, three pieces of chain can be made with lengths in the ratio 3:4:5. These can be laid out to form a triangle, which will have a right angle opposite its longest side.