Question

You start driving north for 32 miles, turn right, and drive east for another 24 miles.

How many miles must you travel to return directly back to your starting point?

Answer 1

40 miles

Explanation:

You can recognize the right triangle as a 3-4-5 right triangle with a scale factor of 8. So the length of the hypotenuse is 8·5 = 40 miles.

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Or, you can use the Pythagorean Theorem, which tells you that the sum of the squares of the leg distances will equal the square of the straight-line (hypotenuse) distance:

32² + 24² = h²

1024 +576 = h² = 1600

h = √1600 = 40 . . . . miles