SOLUTION: I am having problems solving this problem: Suppose you travel north for 35 kilometers then travel east 65 kilometers. How far are you from your starting point? North and east can

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Question 51392: I am having problems solving this problem:
Suppose you travel north for 35 kilometers then travel east 65 kilometers. How far are you from your starting point? North and east can be considered the directions of the y- and x-axis respectively.
Thanks for your time!
Found 2 solutions by stanbon, rchill:
Answer by stanbon(75887) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
distance ^2 = 35^2 + 65^2
d^2=5450
distance = 73.82 km
Cheers,
Stan H.

Answer by rchill(405) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Because you are traveling north and then due east, if you were to draw a line from your starting point to the point where you end up after the turn eastward, you will have a right triangle. Because the hypoteneuse of the right triangle is what you are looking for, the equation becomes , where a and b are the sides forming the right triangle (in this case, north and east) and c is the hypoteneuse. Substituting the values of 35 and 65 into a and b, respectively, yields the formual . That produces , which simplifies to . Taking the square root of both sides produces . Therefore, from the starting point to the current point is 73.824 kilometers.