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3 votes
Two hikers traveled 3 kilometers north and 4

kilometers east, but then went directly home as
shown by the dotted line on the diagram below.
N
3 km
4 km
Home
How far did they travel to get home? Justify your
answer.

User Tenclea
by
8.1k points

1 Answer

1 vote

Answer:

Explanation:

To find the total distance traveled by the hikers to get home, we can use the Pythagorean theorem, which states that in a right-angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (the straight line distance) is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides.

Since the hikers traveled 3 km north and 4 km east, we can consider this as the sides of a right-angled triangle, with the hypotenuse being the straight line distance traveled to get home. So, the square of the distance traveled to get home is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides, i.e., 3^2 + 4^2 = 9 + 16 = 25. Taking the square root of 25 gives us 5 km, so the distance traveled by the hikers to get home is 5 km.

User Mesocyclone
by
7.9k points