SOLUTION: An ant starts at a foot of a staircase and crawls to the base of the fourth step. If each step is 8 inches tall and 10 inches wide, how far is the ant from where it began. The answ

Algebra ->  Length-and-distance -> SOLUTION: An ant starts at a foot of a staircase and crawls to the base of the fourth step. If each step is 8 inches tall and 10 inches wide, how far is the ant from where it began. The answ      Log On


   

Question 963312: An ant starts at a foot of a staircase and crawls to the base of the fourth step. If each step is 8 inches tall and 10 inches wide, how far is the ant from where it began. The answer is 6 times the square root of 41 inches, or 38.4 inches. I'm not sure how to get to that answer. I tried it, but I got something else. I plotted it on a coordinate plane and put the ant on the origin and used (40,32) as it's ending spot, or the base of the fourth step. Then I used the Pythagorean Distance formula. It got me to 51.22 but that's not the answer. What am I doing wrong?
Answer by Fombitz(32388) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

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The blue line shows the distance from the base of the first step to the base of the fourth step.
The x distance is 3%2810%29=30.
The y distance is 3%288%29=24.
The diagonal distance is,
D=sqrt%2830%5E2%2B24%5E2%29
D=sqrt%28900%2B576%29
D=sqrt%281476%29
D=6sqrt%2841%29