Respuesta :
-- If the two congruent sides are any shorter than 4 cm, then
they can't reach end-to-end on the 8-cm side.
-- If they're exactly 4 cm, then they lie right on top of the 8 cm side,
and the triangle looks like a line segment that's 8 cm long.
-- The two congruent sides must be more than 4 centimeters long.
There's no such thing as their "smallest possible length". It can be
anything, just as long as it's more than 4 cm.
Whatever length that you name, no matter how close it is to 4 cm,
I can always name a shorter length that's still more than 4 cm.
So when it's rounded to the nearest tenth, hundredth, thousandth,
millionth etc., it's 4 cm.
they can't reach end-to-end on the 8-cm side.
-- If they're exactly 4 cm, then they lie right on top of the 8 cm side,
and the triangle looks like a line segment that's 8 cm long.
-- The two congruent sides must be more than 4 centimeters long.
There's no such thing as their "smallest possible length". It can be
anything, just as long as it's more than 4 cm.
Whatever length that you name, no matter how close it is to 4 cm,
I can always name a shorter length that's still more than 4 cm.
So when it's rounded to the nearest tenth, hundredth, thousandth,
millionth etc., it's 4 cm.
Let
x------> the length of one of the two congruent sides of the isosceles triangle
we know that
The Triangle Inequality Theorem states that the sum of the lengths of any two sides of a triangle is greater than the length of the third side
In this problem
the longest side is [tex]8\ cm[/tex]
so
Applying the triangle inequality theorem
[tex]x+x > 8[/tex]
[tex]2x> 8[/tex]
[tex]x> 4\ cm[/tex]
The length of one of the two congruent sides must be greater than [tex]4\ cm[/tex]
A solution could be [tex]4.01\ cm[/tex]
If you round to the nearest tenth [tex]4.01\ cm[/tex] the result is equal to [tex]4.0\ cm[/tex]
therefore
the answer is
the smallest possible length is [tex]4.0\ cm[/tex]