Interesting tidbit about walls and 3, 4, 5...

Yesterday I learned an interesting tidbit which is fun to know
even if you are not a carpenter, builder, etc.

Let's say you purchase a corner unit of cabinets, then try to place
them in the corner, but they don't fit right. Hmm. What's the deal here?
The room is square, the corner unit is a corner unit, what could be wrong?

Find a corner. From the right wall, measure three feet in to the
corner. Now on the left wall, measure four feet out away from the corner.
The starting point of the three foot measurement to the ending point of
the four foot measurement on the opposite wall should be five feet long.

Basically you are measuring the triangular space. If the measurements
are taken and you come out with three feet, four feet and five feet, your
walls are squared.

Hope I've made sense. It sure helped me to understand why our formica
unit had to be somewhat wedged. Someone else mentioned this was a
math lesson where he was taught, but I have to say, I was too busy writing
poetry and drawing pictures in math class, so I'm a late bloomer to this
little tidbit, LOL.

Yeah, that is basically the Pythagorean theorem. The sum of the squares of the sides equals the square of the hypotenuse (the long side). 3*3 + 4*4 = 5*5. Good for making square corners - especially deck-building. A framing square (or any kind of square) would be quicker to tell you if you have a square corner or not in a room, though.

You are not gonna believe this! I was "taking a break" from my greenhouse management class, and I "snuck" over to Dave's. Guess what I was struggling all night to understand? The Pythagorean Theorem! I even googled it, but was quickly googly-eyed myself. And here, in a few sentences, Wuvie explains it all. Thanks Wuvie, I love you!


edited to add: Thanks for further explanation hcmcdole! I love you too!

For those of wondering why I need to know this, I'm learning how to measure the surface area of a greenhouse. First step in order to determine its heating requirements. In order to determine a triangular (peaked) roof's surface area, you use the fomula that hcmcdole gave and multiply that times the length of the greenhouse x 2, for the 2 sides. I too was day-dreaming and probably writing my name twenty different ways on my notebook, as I have absolutely zero memory of this lesson.

This message was edited Feb 8, 2007 10:55 PM

LOL! What a coincidence!

There is no such thing as a coincidence. LOL Someone is looking out for you.

LOL. Must be me, Prairie!

Glad you could use it. Now then, wonder who needs
the information about what my dog had in her mouth
this morning? LOL. You don't want to know.

:-)

Surveyers in ancient Egypt used a rope with 12 equally spaced knots to lay out right angles.

Bubba,

Can you give details about the 12 knots in a rope method. Sounds intriguing but I can't visualize it.

3 +4 + 5 = 12.
Start with 3 knots on one axis,
Then 4 on the right angle axis,
Then bring the remaining 5 back to form a triangle.
When knot 1 and 12 are on top of each other, (if all three sides are streched tight), you will have a 90 degree (right) angle.

If I could draw in this box I could show you.

OOOO
O
O

Can't quite draw the hypotenuse, and the text characters don't have the same spacing on both vertical and horizontal.

Okay, that is pretty cool! The ancient Egyptians did some pretty amazing things. (Well so did a lot of ancient civilizations.)

Another goodie that I find useful is that for a right triangle with two equal sides, the hyoptenuse (long side) is equal to one side times the square root of 2 (1.414).
Example, for a right triangle with two sides of 10 feet the long side will be 14.14 feet.
This procedure may also be used to calculate the diagonal of a square.

This message was edited Feb 16, 2007 10:39 PM

And now it is starting to sound like the Wizard of Oz. LOL

Stay with the 3, 4, and 5 since these are easier numbers to measure. Measuring 14.14 would be a lot harder to eyeball in. A large framing square is always good for quick square corners. The other way to square corners is measure both diagonals of a rectangle since these will be the same for true square corners (but sometimes almost impossible to obtain).

You do realize you lost me when you started talking math.

LOL