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4. Jerry is going to meet Tom to play chess at his house. Jerry’s home is 2 kilometers north and 8 kilometers west of Tom’s. All the roads between the two houses are two-way and run either north to south or east to west. How many kilometers will Jerry drive to visit Tom?

1 Answer

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Final answer:

Jerry will drive approximately 8.246 kilometers to visit Tom's house.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find how many kilometers Jerry will drive to visit Tom, we can use the concept of displacement. Displacement is the shortest straight-line distance between the initial and final positions.

In this case, Jerry's house is 2 kilometers north and 8 kilometers west of Tom's house. By drawing a diagram or using the Pythagorean theorem, we can determine the displacement as the hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of 2 and 8 kilometers.

Using the Pythagorean theorem, the displacement is
√(2^2 + 8^2)

=
√(4 + 64)

=
√(68)

≈ 8.246 kilometers.

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