SOLUTION: Tommy and Zach are starting out at the same position. Tommy runs north at 5 miles per hour and Zach starts to run east 2 hours later at the rate of 8 miles per hour. How long until

Question 1076497: Tommy and Zach are starting out at the same position. Tommy runs north at 5 miles per hour and Zach starts to run east 2 hours later at the rate of 8 miles per hour. How long until Tommy and Zach are 16 miles apart? Round to the nearest tenth if necessary.
Answer by Boreal(15235) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
They are two legs of a right triangle where the hypotenuse is the distance apart.
In x hours, Tommy runs 5x miles and Zach runs 8(x-2) miles
Square both of them and set them equal to 16^2=256
25x^2+64x^2-256x+256=256
89x^2-256x=0
x(89x-256)=0
x=256/89=2.9 hours ANSWER
Tommy will be 14.5 miles away and Zach 7.2 miles away
14.5^2+1.8^2=210.25+51.84=261.09
sqrt (261.09)=16.16
if done with 2.876, then the legs are 14.380 and 7.008
49.112+206.78=255.90 and that sqrt is 15.996.

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