Question

@mathmale

Anthony was mapping out a route to ride his bike. The route he picked forms a right triangle, as shown in the picture below.



Note: Figure is not drawn to scale.

If the route takes him 10 miles on Forrest Lane and 26 miles up Cedar Drive, how far will Anthony ride down Pine Avenue?

16 miles
36 miles
24 miles
30 miles

Answer 1

@mathmale

Answer 2

While you don't have to do so, you might consider re-drawing this triangle to scale. After doing that, marking the known info on this drawing would give you further clues as to what to do next.

Answer 3

Well I mean I'd suggest using the pythagorean theorem.

Answer 4

I'm having touble with the pythagorean theorem

Answer 5

Which side of the bike rider's journey is longest? That leg would be the hypotenuse of your right triangle. The shorter two sides are called "legs."

Please write out the Pythagorean Theorem, for starts. Then you and I or you and halorazer would have something to discuss.

Answer 6

I'm asking you to type in the Pyth. Them. here.

Answer 7

a^ + b^ = c^

Answer 8

Weren't there supposed to be exponents in that equation? Please look up "Pythagorean Theorem," and you should then quickly see what is missing in your version.

Answer 9

The "square of x" can be represented here as x^2, or \[x ^{2}\]

Answer 10

a2 + b2 = c2

Answer 11

Again, Lee, you may write either a^2 or \[a^2\]but (please) not a2.

Answer 12

a^2+ b^2 = c^2

Answer 13

beautiful.

c^2 represents the square of the length of the longest side.

a and b represent the lengths of the two legs.

You know the length of the hyp and you know the length of one of the legs. Write those values into the Pyth. Thm. as you've just presented it.

Answer 14

10^2 + 26^2 = c^2 ???

Answer 15

No. A and B are the legs (two shortest sides) and C is the hypotenuse (the longest side). From the right triangle that we saw, C would be cedar lane, which was 26 miles. So it would be 10^2+b^2=26^2.

Answer 16

Ohh ok.

Answer 17

From that can you solve it using basic algebra?

Answer 18

i think so

Answer 19

it's 24

Answer 20

How did you get that?

Answer 21

Lee: I explained to your earlier that c represents the length of the longest side. So it is ' c ' that is 26, not ' b '.

Please start over. Your hypotenuse (longest side) is 26. Square this and write it on the RIGHT side of the Pyth. Thm. as written above. We know one of the legs is 10, so square that and write that square on the left side of our equation. This leaves you with the square of the unknown as the other term on the left side. Please write this out symbolically.

Answer 22

OpenStudy tells me that you're working on a different problem now. If you come back to this present discussion, we could finish this problem.