John walks 20km due east then turns 270 degrees anticlockwise and walks another 20km. What would be his bearing from the starting point?

Answer 1

I think it would be best to draw a diagram for this sort of question. So John walks 20 km East.

START ----------------> JOHN (@ 20km EAST)

- So John is facing this direction -->
- If you were to turn 270 degree facing --> then you would be facing downwards or South
- So, John walks another 20 km South

If you draw this out, you'll see that you have a triangle with both the base and height being 20 km and the hypotenuse is the unknown.

From there you would use Pythagorean theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) and solve for 'c' or the hypotenuse. That should be John's distance from the start.