Question

Phillip is standing across the classroom from his desk. He walks x steps in a straight line to his right, turns left at a 90° angle, and then walks another y steps in a straight line to arrive at his desk. The shortest path from Phillip's original position to his desk is d steps. Which of the following functions would best model the situation above? polynomial step absolute value square root A polynomial B step C absolute value or D square root

Answer 1

For this case, we can model the problem as a triangle with a right angle.
 Where,
 x, y: lengths of the sides of the triangle
 d: hypotenuse of the triangle
 We then have the following relationship:
 $d ^ 2 = x ^ 2 + y ^ 2$
 Clearing d we have:
 $d = \sqrt{ x^2 + y^2}$
 Answer:
 A functions that would best model the situation above is:
 D square root