Question

A baseball diamond is a square with 90 foot sides. If the catcher is standing on home plate, what is the approximate distance to throw out a player headed to second base?

help!!

Answer 1

Answer: approximately 127.3 feet

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Step-by-step explanation:

Draw a straight line from home plate to second base. Two right triangles form. Each triangle has both legs equal to 90 ft. The hypotenuse is what we're after. We'll use the pythagorean theorem to find it.

`a^2 + b^2 = c^2\\\\c = √(a^2 + b^2)\\\\c = √(90^2 + 90^2)\\\\c = √(16200)\\\\c \approx 127.27922\\\\c \approx \boldsymbol{127.3}\\\\`

It's approximately 127.3 feet from home plate to second base. This is a straight line distance. Any curved path the ball takes will travel a slightly longer distance; however, we only consider the straight line distance for the sake of simplicity.