Question 388157: mary travels 7 miles north and 12 miles west. what is the diagonal distance from her starting point to where she stopped? Found 2 solutions by robertb, aggie_tutor:Answer by robertb(5830) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! This is a "right triangle" problem solved using pythagorean theorem.
The theorem is:
Where a and b are lengths of the two shorter sides of a right triangle, and c is the length of that triangle's longest side.
We know this is a right triangle because the problem statement says so. The only shape that going north (think going up the Y axis of a chart) followed by going west (think going down the X axis in the negative direction) could be is a right triangle, and the two distances mark the two shorter sides of the triangle:
g<------12------^
|
|
7
|
h
So if the trip starts at h and ends at g, the length of g->h is the longest side of this triangle, i.e. c.
a = 7
b = 12 which is about 13.89 miles.
