0
$\begingroup$

This is just to confirm my idea on how to do this problem:

On a map, Cynthia lives $1$ mile east & $1.5$ miles south of a school. Charles lives $2$ miles west & $0.8$ miles south of the same school. How far apart (in miles) do they live from each other?

So I thought:

Cynthia lives $2.5$ miles from school. Charles lives $2.8$ miles from school.

But they are not driving to school. They are driving to each other. Therfore:

Cynthia lives $3$ miles from Charles.

This soultion was way too easy so I did not want to trust myself with this.

Could it perhaps be instead:

$1.5-0.8 = 0.7 => 3.7 \text{ miles}?$

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    You should probably apply the Pythagorean theorem somewhere.2012-07-01

1 Answers 1

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enter image description here

Can you figure out the distance from the picture above by making use of the fact that the red triangle is a right angled triangle?

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    @Bill Yes. So 3.08 < 3 + 0.7 right? Hence, the answer is that they live $3.08$ miles apart.2012-07-01