Question

5. When looking at a map, a student realizes that Birmingham is nearly due west of Atlanta, and Nashville is nearly due north of Birmingham. If the distance from Atlanta to Birmingham is roughly 150 mi, and the distance from Birmingham to Nashville is roughly 200 mi, what is the estimated distance from Atlanta to Nashville?

Answer 1

Answer: 250 mi

Explanation:

Here we can think in a triangle rectangle:

The distance from Birmingham to Atlanta is roughly 150 mi, and this is one of the cathetus.

And the distance from Birmingham to Nashville is roughly 200 mi, this is the other cathetus of the triangle.

Now, the distance from Atlanta to Nashville will be the hypotenuse of this triangle rectangle.

Now we can apply the Pythagorean's theorem:

A^2 + B^2 = H^2

Where A and B are the cathetus, and H is the hypotenuse:

Then:

H = √(A^2 + B^2)

H = √(150^2 + 200^2) mi = √(62,500) mi = 250 mi

Then the estimated distance from Atlanta to Nashville is 250 mi