One of Madison's hobbies is to locate hidden geocaches. To find yesterday's cache, Madison was instructed to start at a water fountain at a local park. Then, the directions had her walk 15 yards due west and 8 yards due south. If this was the location of the cache, how far was it from the water fountain where she started?
A.
17 yards
B.
23 yards
C.
12 yards
D.
7 yards
Good grief, that is simple Pythagoras !
How could the bot miss this one ???
d^2 = 15^2 + 8^2 = 289
d = √289
= 17
The bot does not know what it is doing. It is very frustrating.
To find the distance from the water fountain to the location of the cache, we can use the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
In this case, the 15 yards west and 8 yards south form the two legs of a right triangle. The distance from the water fountain to the cache is the hypotenuse of this triangle.
To calculate the distance, we can use the formula:
Distance = √(15^2 + 8^2).
Calculating that:
Distance = √(225 + 64) = √289 = 17 yards.
So, the distance from the water fountain to the cache is 17 yards.
Therefore, the correct answer is A. 17 yards.