SOLUTION: I went cross-country skiing in a straight line 3 miles from my home, then made a 90 degree right turn and skied for another 4 miles. If I wanted to ski straight home from here, how

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Question 877871: I went cross-country skiing in a straight line 3 miles from my home, then made a 90 degree right turn and skied for another 4 miles. If I wanted to ski straight home from here, how far would I have to go?
Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Draw out the picture and you'll find out that you're drawing a right triangle with legs 3 & 4. The hypotenuse is unknown (call it x for now).


Use the pythagorean theorem to solve for x






Note



The hypotenuse is exactly 5 miles long. So if you took the shortest route, then you would go 5 miles (instead of 3+4 = 7 miles)

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