Evan is going for a walk in Central Park. He starts at the Southern end of the park and walk 3 miles North. He then turns to the right and walks 2 miles east. What is that shortest distance he can walk to get back where he started?
Use the Pythagorean Theorem.
3^2 + 2^2 = c^2
9 + 4 = 13
3.6 miles = c
Thanks!
You're welcome!
To find the shortest distance Evan can walk to get back to where he started, we can visualize his movements on a coordinate plane.
Evan starts at the Southern end of Central Park, which we can represent as the point (0, 0). When he walks 3 miles North, he moves up on the y-axis to the point (0, 3). Then, when he turns right and walks 2 miles East, he moves to the point (2, 3).
To get back to where he started, Evan needs to go in the opposite direction of his previous movements. Since he initially walked North, he needs to walk South. Since he then walked East, he needs to walk West. This means he needs to go 3 miles South and 2 miles West.
Walking 3 miles South means moving down on the y-axis from (2, 3) to (2, 0). Then, walking 2 miles West means moving left on the x-axis from (2, 0) to (0, 0), which is the starting point.
Therefore, the shortest distance Evan can walk to get back to where he started is 3 miles South and 2 miles West, for a total distance of 5 miles.