Question

A ray of light is travelling from north towards south and it has travelled 49 km until it hit a mirror which reflected the light towards east. The ray of light reflected towards east has travelled 47 km until it hit another mirror which reflected it diagonally towards the initial point which is north. How long is the line reflected towards north diagonally? Round the result to two decimals.

Answer 1

The path is a right triangle. One side of this triangleis 49 km long, the other side is 47 km long.

The hypotenuse is the the diagonal line searched.

So use Pythagora's theorem to find the diagonal line:

Diagonal = √[(47km)^2 + (49km)^2] = 67.90km