Reyna's house is 12 blocks due west of the school. Shaquille's house is 5 blocks due north of the school. Shaquille walks to Reyna's house every morning and then they walk to school together. What is the shortest distance Shaquille could walk on his way to school when he walks with Reyna?
Looks like 5+12+12
assuming they keep to the rectangular grid of streets.
If he can walk cross-country, then consider the hypotenuse of a 5-12-13 triangle.
To find the shortest distance Shaquille could walk on his way to school when he walks with Reyna, we need to visualize the situation on a coordinate grid.
Let's assume the school is located at the origin (0, 0) on the grid. Since Reyna's house is 12 blocks due west of the school, we can represent it as (-12, 0). Similarly, Shaquille's house is 5 blocks due north of the school, represented as (0, 5).
When Shaquille walks from Reyna's house to the school, he needs to walk east by 12 blocks and south by 5 blocks. So, his total displacement would be (12, -5).
To find the shortest distance Shaquille could walk on his way to school, we need to calculate the magnitude of his displacement vector. The magnitude of a vector can be found using the Pythagorean theorem.
So, the shortest distance Shaquille could walk on his way to school is the length of the displacement vector, which is:
√((12^2) + (-5^2))
Simplifying this, we get:
√(144 + 25)
= √169
= 13
Therefore, the shortest distance Shaquille could walk on his way to school when he walks with Reyna is 13 blocks.