Question

Dominic wants to find the distance between his house on one side of the park and his school on the other side. He marks off a third point forming a right triangle, as shown in the diagram. The distances in the diagram are measured in yards. Use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the distance from Dominic’s house to the school. Sho

Answer 1

The distance from the house to the school is 500 units

Explanation:

The distance we want to calculate represents the hypotenuse of the right triangle

So, to use the Pythagoras’ theorem, we need the two other side lengths apart from the hypotenuse

The base side measures (350-50 = 300 units)

The measure of the height is (450-50 = 400 units)

Mathematically, the theorem states that the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the two other sides

Thus, we have it that;

h^2 = 300^2 + 400^2

h^2 = 90,000 + 160,000

h^2 = 250,000

h = √250,000

h = 500 units