Find the minimum possible value of where
Solution
Substitute and , and notice that , and . Therefore the first term is an application of Law of Cosines on a triangle that has two sides 3 and 7 with an angle measuring between them to find the length of the third side; similarly, the second is for a triangle with two sides 7 and 10 that have an angle measuring between them. 'Gluing' these two triangles together along their sides of length 7 so that the merged triangles form a right angle, we see that the minimum length of the sum of their third sides occurs when the glued triangles form a right triangle. This right triangle has legs of length 3 and 10, so its hypotenuse has length .
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