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put this solution on YOUR website!2 ships leave port one sailing east and the other south. some time later they are 17 mi apart, with the eastbound ship 7 mi farther from the port than the southbound ship. how far is each from port?
In this type of questions, we have to use the Pythagorean Theorem. It states that in a right triangle, the square of the first leg plus the square of the sqcond lerg is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. In this case, let us assume that x is the distance of the southbound ship from the port, then it follows that x + 7 is the distance of the eastbound ship from the port. They are 17 miles apart. Equating we have:
Solving:
Applying the quadratic formula
,
we have:
Solving:
or
or
or
Since we are solving real problems, it cannot be a negative integer. So we have to use the positive root which is
Then the distance of the southbound ship from the port is 8 miles, while the distance of the eastbound ship from the port is 15 miles.
Thank you.
~kmcruz09~
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