Swl11e7 - Basic arithmetic - Similar triangles

In this example we're asked to use similar triangles to determine the links of two missing sides. Now these triangles are similar but they're drawn in kind of a weird way. So if there's any doubt whatsoever in your mind about how the sides are proportional to each other, I recommend that you redraw the triangle so that you can see the information very clearly. So I'm going to do that here. So I have sides of X, 23.5, and 52.3 and their orientation is extremely, extremely important. So that's why we redraw them so that you can see which sides are proportional to each other. So now to determine the length of side X, I can work With this set of sides here, and this set of sides here. So I'm going to set up the proportion X/23.5 equals 7.3 divided by 8.6 and if I use a partial cross product here, I get X=7.3 times 23.5 divided by 8.6 and if I perform those computations, multiply, and then divide and round to the nearest tenth, I get X equals 19.9 For Y, I can use this set of sides. So this one and this one. So I can set up the proportion Y/8.6 equals 52.3 divided by 23.5, again using partial cross product I get Y equals 52.3 times 8.6 divided by 23.5 and if I perform those computations multiplying and then dividing I get 19.1. There are no units so I can just write X=19.9 and Y is 19.1.