A car is traveling on a road that is perpendicular to a railroad track. When the car is 30 meters from the crossing, the car's new collision detector warns the driver that there is a train 50 meters from the car and is heading towards the same crossing. How far is the train from the crossing?

How would I solve this?

1 answer

your diagram should show a right-angled triangle with sides 30 and hypotenuse 50

using Pythagoras the distance of the train from the crossing is √(50^2 - 30^2) = 40

(You might have recognized the ratio of the 3:4:5 right-angled triangle here)