A hungry bunny rabbit hops 20 meters north and then turns and hops 8 meters west in search of tasty flowers to eat.

Answer: 464
Show some work: Since the directions do matter we can use the Pythagorean theorem.

1 answer

Let's represent the northward distance as "a" and the westward distance as "b".

According to the problem, a = 20 meters (north) and b = 8 meters (west).

We can use the Pythagorean theorem, which states that the square of the hypotenuse (c^2) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (a^2 + b^2).

Applying the theorem:

c^2 = a^2 + b^2
c^2 = (20)^2 + (8)^2
c^2 = 400 + 64
c^2 = 464

Taking the square root of both sides to find the hypotenuse:

c = √464
c ≈ 21.54

Therefore, the bunny rabbit traveled approximately 21.54 meters in total.