After school, Pam skateboards directly from school to a skate park and then from the skate park to a game store. The skate park is 4 miles south of the school and the game store is 5 miles east of the skate park. What is the straight-line distance between the school and the game store? If necessary, round to the nearest tenth.
I don't understand this.
It's described a right angle triangle. The problem is asking for the hypotenuse. So use the Pythagorean Theorem.
a^2 + b^2 = c^2
Draw a vertical line with the arrow pointing south. Then join a hor. line with the arrow pointing to the right(East). Draw the hypotenuse which is the straight-line distance.
To find the straight-line distance between the school and the game store, we can use the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem states that in a right-angled triangle, the square 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 distance from the school to the skate park is 4 miles south and the distance from the skate park to the game store is 5 miles east. Since these distances form the sides of a right-angled triangle, we can consider them as the legs of the triangle, and the straight-line distance between the school and the game store as the hypotenuse.
Now, we can calculate the straight-line distance using the formula:
c = sqrt(a^2 + b^2)
where c is the straight-line distance (hypotenuse), and a and b are the lengths of the other two sides (legs) of the triangle.
In this case, a = 4 (distance south) and b = 5 (distance east). Plugging these values into the formula, we have:
c = sqrt(4^2 + 5^2)
= sqrt(16 + 25)
= sqrt(41)
≈ 6.4
Therefore, the straight-line distance between the school and the game store is approximately 6.4 miles when rounded to the nearest tenth.