Question

A person walked diagonally across a square plot. Approximately, what was the percent saved by not walking along the edges? A. 35% B. 30 % C. 20 % D. None of the above

Answer 1

Answer: 30% (choice B)

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Step-by-step explanation:

Consider a square with side length 1 unit.

Draw a diagonal and we have two congruent isosceles right triangles. Each triangle has a hypotenuse of sqrt(2) after using the pythagorean theorem.

If the person walks along the edges, then they walk 1+1 = 2 units.

If they walk along the diagonal, they walk roughly sqrt(2) = 1.4142 units.

They save roughly 2-1.4142 = 0.5858 units

which is roughly 0.5858/2 = 0.2929 = 29.29% of the walked distance along the edges. There's probably some slight rounding error going on, but it's fairly close to 30%, so that is likely the final answer.