Question 281399:  Avoiding a collision. A car is traveling on a road that is perpendicular to a railroad track. When the car is 30 meters from the crossing, the car’s new collision detector warns the driver that there is a train 50 meters from the car and heading toward the same crossing. How far is the train from the crossing? 
 
 Answer by subudear(62)      (Show Source): 
You can  put this solution on YOUR website! Lets consider the distance of train from crossing is 'a' meters
 
distance of car from crossing is given, say , 'b'=30 meters 
distance of car from train is given, say , 'c'=50 meters
 
Also the rail track and road are perpendicular to each other so it makes a right anlged triangle between car, train and crossing.
 
now we know that in a right angled triagle a^2 + b^2 = c^2 
replacing the values we get
 
a^2 + 30^2 = 50^2
 
a^2 + 900 = 2500
 
a^2 = 2500 - 900
 
a^2 = 1600
 
a = 40 meters  
 
so the distance of train from crossing is 40 meters 
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