Question

to avoid a large shallow reef a ship set a course from point a and traveled 24 miles east to point b . the ship them turn and traveled 33 miles south to point c. if the ship could have traveled in a straight lime from point a to point c about how many miles could it have saved

Answer 1

First, we are going to find the distance traveled by the ship adding the tow distances:
Distance traveled= 24 mi +33 mi=57 mi

Next, we are going to use the Pythagorean theorem to find the distance from $a$ to $c$:
$d^2=24^2+33^2$
$d^2=576+1089$
d^2=1665
$d= \sqrt{1665}$
$d=40.8$ mi

Finally, we are going to subtract the two distances:
57 mi -40.8 mi= 16.2 mi

We can conclude that if the ship could have traveled in a straight lime from point a to point c, it could have saved 16.2 miles.