Question

Two hikers start a trip from a camp walking 15 miles due east. They turn north and walk 17 miles to a large pond. How far is the pond from base camp to the nearest tenth of a miles.

Answer 1

22.7 miles

Explanation:

The hikers start walking 15 miles due east and then they turn north and walk 17 miles to a large pond.

The shape of their journey can be represented as a right angled triangle, shown below.

To find the distance between the pond and the base camp, we need to find the hypotenuse of the triangle.

We can do this by using Pythagoras theorem:

`hyp^2 = a^2 + b^2`

where a and b are the other two sides of the triangle. Therefore:

`hyp^2 = 15^2 + 17^2\\\\hyp^2 = 514\\\\hyp = √(5`4) \\\\hyp = 22.7 miles`

The pond is 22.7 miles far from the base camp.