SOLUTION: A woman walks 20 m west, 100 m south, 8 m west, and then 4 m north. How far is she from her starting point?

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Question 1083532: A woman walks 20 m west, 100 m south, 8 m west, and then 4 m north. How far is she from her starting point?
Found 2 solutions by jim_thompson5910, MathTherapy:
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Answer: 100 meters

Note: this is a page edit. My last answer was incorrect. I realized I misread the problem. The solution has been corrected now.

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Explanation:

Let point A be at the origin.
The origin is the point (0,0) which is where the x and y axis meet.
This is where the woman will start.

She walks 20 meters west, so she ends up at (-20,0) which is marked by point B.

Then she walks 100 meters south ending up at point C (-20,-100)

After that, she walks 8 meters west to get to D = (-28,-100). (This is where my initial error was made, but it has been fixed now. Point E has been updated as well)

Finally, she walks 4 meters north to end up at point E, which is located at (-28,-96)

Let's draw all this out

The coordinates of each point are
A = (0, 0)
B = (-20, 0)
C = (-20, -100)
D = (-28, -100)
E = (-28, -96)

The goal is to find the distance from A to E.
This is the same as finding the length of segment AE (or segment EA).

We use the distance formula. The two points used are
(x1,y1) = (0,0) ... point A
(x2,y2) = (-28,-96) ... point E

So we have x1 = 0, y1 = 0, x2 = -28, and y2 = -96, which means:


Plug in the values mentioned above









The exact distance is 100 meters.

Answer by MathTherapy(10551)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
A woman walks 20 m west, 100 m south, 8 m west, and then 4 m north. How far is she from her starting point?
 

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