Question

On the school playground, the slide is 8 feet due west of the tire swing and 15 feet due south of the monkey bars. What is the distance between the tire swing and the monkey bars?

Answer 1

To find the distance between the tire swing and the monkey bars, we can create a right triangle using the information given.

Let the distance between the tire swing and the slide be the base of the right triangle, which is 8 feet (west).
Let the distance between the monkey bars and the slide be the height of the right triangle, which is 15 feet (south).

Using the Pythagorean Theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2), where a and b are the two shorter sides of the triangle and c is the hypotenuse, we can calculate the distance between the tire swing and the monkey bars:

8^2 + 15^2 = c^2
64 + 225 = c^2
289 = c^2
c = √289
c = 17

Therefore, the distance between the tire swing and the monkey bars is 17 feet.