Question

Pythagorean Sarah runs down the football field 60 ft, then turns left and runs another 80 ft. She stops and realizes she needs to get water back where she started and takes the shortest distance back to the starting point. How many more feet will she need to run to make it to the water bottle?

A) 100 feet
B) 80 feet
C) 140 feet
D) 70 feet

Answer 1

Sarah doesn't need to run any more feet to make it to the water bottle.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find how many more feet Sarah needs to run to make it to the water bottle, we can use the Pythagorean theorem. The distance Sarah has run down the football field and then turned left is the hypotenuse of a right triangle. Let's call this distance AB. The distance she needs to run to make it to the water bottle is the other leg of the right triangle. Let's call this distance BC. Using the Pythagorean theorem, we can find BC:

AB^2 = AC^2 + BC^2

60^2 = 80^2 + BC^2

3600 = 6400 + BC^2

BC^2 = 3600 - 6400

BC^2 = -2800

Since the answer is negative, this means that Sarah needs to run 0 feet to make it to the water bottle.