Question

Two men are at the grocery store at noon. One walks 0.6 miles east and the other one walks 0.8 miles north. After that they stop. How far apart are they in miles?

Answer 1

The north displacement and the east displacement can be viewed as simply the legs of a right triangle and the distance between them is just the magnitude of the hypotenuse so:

h^2=x^2+y^2, where h is the distance between the two points, x is the easterly distance and y is the northerly distance....

h^2=.8^2+.6^2

h^2=.64+.36

h^2=1

h=1

So they are one mile apart from each other.