Question

A flying squirrel lives in a nest that is 6 meters up in a tree but wants to eat an acorn that is on the ground 4 meters away from the base of his tree if the flying squirrel glides from his nest to the acorn the scurries back to the base of the tree and then climbs back up the tree to his nest how far will the flying squirrel travel in total?

Answer 1

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Answer:

10 +2√13 ≈ 17.2 meters

Explanation:

The straight-line distance from the nest to the acorn is given by the Pythagorean theorem:

d² = 6² +4² = 36 +16 = 52

d = √52 = 2√13 . . . meters

The distance back to the nest is 4 m to the tree plus 6 m up the tree.

The round-trip distance to the acorn is ...

2√13 +4 +6 = 10 +2√13 ≈ 17.2 . . . meters