Question

A man drove 11 mi directly east from his home, made a left turn at an intersection, and then traveled 9 mi north to his place of work. If a road was made directly from his home to his place of work, what would its distance be to the nearest tenth of a mile?

Answer 1

Answer: 14 miles

Explanation:

In the attached figure we can see the two segments the man drove, where the
`d` is the distance of a road that goes from the man's home directly to his work.

It should be noted that
`d`is also the hypotenuse of the righ triangle formed. Hence, we can use the Pithagorean theorem to find this distance:

`d=\sqrt{(11 mi)^(2) + (9 mi)^(2)}`

Then:

`d=14.21 mi \approx 14 mi`