Question
A car travels 30km due south and then 40km west, what is its resultant from the starting point?
Answers
Ced
This is a Pythagorean theorem problem.
Think of a triangle that is pointing up. The side that goes down to the 90 degree angle is 30km long, and the side going left from there is 40 km long. You need to determine the hypotenuse of the triangle.
a^2+b^2=c^2
30^2+40^2=c^2
2500=c^2
sqrt(2500=c
c=50 km
Think of a triangle that is pointing up. The side that goes down to the 90 degree angle is 30km long, and the side going left from there is 40 km long. You need to determine the hypotenuse of the triangle.
a^2+b^2=c^2
30^2+40^2=c^2
2500=c^2
sqrt(2500=c
c=50 km