Question

Phillip is standing across the classroom from his desk. He walks x steps in a straight line to his right, turns left at a 90° angle, and then walks another y steps in a straight line to arrive at his desk. The shortest path from Phillip's original position to his desk is d steps. Which of the following functions would best model the situation above? polynomial step absolute value square root A polynomial B step C absolute value or D square root

Answer 1

For this case, we can model the problem as a triangle with a right angle.
Where,
x, y: lengths of the sides of the triangle
d: hypotenuse of the triangle
We then have the following relationship:

`d ^ 2 = x ^ 2 + y ^ 2`
Clearing d we have:

`d = √( x^2 + y^2)`
Answer:
A functions that would best model the situation above is:
D square root