If you drive 16

Question

miles​ south, then make a left turn and drive 12

miles​ east, how far are​ you, in a straight​ line, from your starting​ point? Use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve the problem. Use a calculator to find square​ roots, rounding to the nearest tenth as needed.

Answer 1

We can use the Pythagorean theorem to solve this problem. Let's call the distance we are looking for "d".

To use the Pythagorean theorem, we need to know the lengths of two sides of a right triangle. We can create a right triangle by drawing a line from our starting point to our ending point (which is 16 miles south and 12 miles east of our starting point).

We can use the 16 miles and 12 miles as the lengths of the legs of our right triangle. The distance we are looking for (d) is the length of the hypotenuse of the right triangle.

Using the Pythagorean theorem, we can write:

d^2 = 16^2 + 12^2

d^2 = 256 + 144

d^2 = 400

Taking the square root of both sides, we get:

d = √400

d = 20

So we are 20 miles from our starting point in a straight line.