Question

An airplane flies above the Pacific Ocean at 3600ft above sea level while a shark swims 55ft below the surface of the ocean. What is the vertical distance between the airplane and the shark when the plane is directly above the shark?

Answer 1

The vertical distance between the airplane and the shark is 3655 feet, which is obtained by adding the airplane's altitude above sea level to the shark's depth below the ocean surface.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student asked about the vertical distance between an airplane flying at 3600 feet above sea level and a shark that is swimming 55 feet below the surface of the ocean. To find the vertical distance, we simply need to add the height of the airplane above sea level and the depth of the shark below the surface because one is a height above a point and the other is a depth below it.

The airplane is 3600 feet above sea level, and the shark is 55 feet below sea level. Therefore, the vertical distance between them is 3600 feet + 55 feet = 3655 feet.