SOLUTION: Hello, Please help me with this story problem. I got 20 mi...but want to check. Two cars leave an intersection. One car travels north; the other east. When the car tr

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Question 99024: Hello,
Please help me with this story problem. I got 20 mi...but want to check.
Two cars leave an intersection. One car travels north; the other east. When the car traveling north had gone 15 mi, the distance between the cars was 5 mi more than the distance traveled by the car heading east. How far had the east bound car travled? Thanks..>Tammy
Found 2 solutions by stanbon, doukungfoo:
Answer by stanbon(75887) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
If the eastbound car goes x miles,
15^2 + x^2= (x+5)^2
225 + x^2 = x^2+10x+25
200= 10x
x= 20 miles
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Cheers,
Stan H.

Answer by doukungfoo(195) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Yes 20 miles is the correct answer. You should have used the Pythagorean theorem to solve this problem. The variable a is used to represent the distance traveled by the north bound car, so the a=15. The b variable is the unknown distance traveled by the east bound car, so b=x. Finally the c variable is the distance between the two cars which is given to be 5 more miles than the distance traveled by the east bound car, so c= x+5.
Now we can plug in these values to the Pythagorean formula and solve for x. Here is how it works out.