SOLUTION: You and your friend part at an intersection. You drive off north at 50 mph, and your friend drives east at 50mph. After three hours the distance between you and your friend is how

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Question 219687: You and your friend part at an intersection. You drive off north at 50 mph, and your friend drives east at 50mph. After three hours the distance between you and your friend is how many miles?
Answer by solver91311(24713) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!


Use the Pythagorean Theorem. You and your friend will have described the legs of an isosceles right triangle of 150 miles each (50 mph X 3 hrs).



Or, since you know that this is an isosceles right triangle and the hypotenuse is the square root of 2 times the length of one of the legs, you can just calculate:



That expression is actually sufficient and is the simplest expression of the exact answer. If you need a numeric approximation you can do your own arithmetic. By the way, the PROPER way to express the numeric approximation to the answer is to the nearest whole mile. That is because the speeds were given in whole miles. The result of any calculation based on measurements should be expressed to no greater precision than the least precise of the given measurements.

John