Question

If a car travels 10 ft due north and then 15 feet due west, how far is the car from it starting point? This is for homework and it’s on the Pythagorean theorem

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

The car travel 10ft north then 15ft due west. In order to find the distance from starting point. We need to find the hypotenuse where the distance to north and west are the adjacent side.

We can use Pythagorean’s theorem according to that:

Let c be the distance from starting point.
And a and b be the distance travel to north and west.

a^2 + b^2 = c^2
10^2 + 15^2 = c^2
100 + 225 = c^2
325 = c^2
Sqrt(325) = c
5sqrt(13) = c

Therefore, the distance from starting point is 5sqrt(13) ft