McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012
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McGraw Hill Integrated II, 2012 View details
5. Tangents
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Exercise 15 Page 754

If a line is perpendicular to a radius at its endpoint on a circle, then the line is tangent to the circle.

No, see solution.

Practice makes perfect

If a line is perpendicular to a radius at its endpoint on a circle, then the line is tangent to the circle. Therefore, to determine whether a tangent is shown on the diagram, it is enough to determine if the line that appears to be a tangent forms a right angle with the radius.

To do so, we will use the Converse of the Pythagorean Theorem. We will substitute the side lengths into the Pythagorean Theorem. a^2+b^2=c^2 ⇓ YZ^2+XY^2? =XZ^2 Next, we will substitute the given lengths in the above equation. If we obtain a true statement, the triangle is a right triangle. If we have a right triangle, the line is a tangent. If we do not have a right triangle, the line shown is not a tangent.
YZ^2+XY^2? =XZ^2
5^2+ 8^2? =( 5+3)^2
5^2+8^2? = 8^2
25+64? =64
89 ≠ 64 *
Since we did not obtain a true statement, the triangle in the diagram is not a right triangle. Therefore, XY does not form a right angle with the radius. This means that it is not a tangent.