Nikki is fishing from a bank 27 feet above water level. In this location, the fish tend to feed at
37 feet below the surface. How long must Nikki's fish line be to reach the fish?
Nikki is 27 feet above the water, and the fish are 37 feet below. So the line needs to stretch that distance.
27 - (-37) = 64 feet
To find the length of Nikki's fish line, we need to calculate the vertical distance between the fishing bank and the fish.
Given:
- The bank is 27 feet above the water level.
- The fish tend to feed at 37 feet below the surface.
To determine the vertical distance, we subtract the depth of the fish from the height of the bank:
27 feet (bank height) - 37 feet (depth of the fish) = -10 feet.
The negative sign indicates that the fish is below the bank. However, distance is always a positive value, so we take the absolute value of -10:
|-10| = 10 feet.
Thus, the length of Nikki's fish line must be at least 10 feet to reach the fish.