A sailboat drifts 600 meters west, makes a turn and sails 800 meters south. How far is the sailboat from its original position?
1 answer:
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Answer:
or 2.738
Step-by-step explanation:
Let’s just look at the triangle on the top with the on the top and x on the bottom. (Basically the top half to the equilateral triangle)
There is a small square in the bottom right corner, which indicates that this triangle is a right triangle. This means that we can use the Pythagorean Theorem:
We know that \sqrt{10} is our hypotenuse, and therefore our c in our equation. Let’s say that x=a in our equation. Therefore we are left to find b. However, b is half the length of the side of the original equilateral triangle. An equilateral triangle means that all three sides are the same length. Therefore our side would also be \sqrt{10} units long. However we know that b is half of that value, so b= or
Plugging these values into the equation:
x^2+ (\frac{\sqrt{10} }{2})^{2}=\sqrt{10} ^{2}
This approximately equals 2.738