Suppose a railroad is 1 km long, and it expands on a hot day by 10cm in length. Approximately how high would the center of the rail rise above the ground

Question

Suppose a railroad is 1 km long, and it expands on a hot day by 10cm in length.  Approximately how high would the center of the rail rise above the ground

anonymous · Answer

The length of the railroad is 1km and it expands 10cm.  
To solve this problem, you have to create a right triangle. You can do this by cutting everything in half.

Your hypotenuse will be 1/2km + 5cm, one of the legs will be 1/2km.  To make everything simple, I converted everything into meters. So you will have 500m + .05m as the hypotenuse and 500m as one of the legs. Use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the other leg.  Do not round your answer.

My teacher emailed me a hint to answering the question. She cahnged everything to meters.

anonymous · Answer

use Pythagoras theorem to solve for the other leg. that is your answer. Your teacher spelled it out for you.