Michael is swimming in a pool that is 120 ft. long by 50 feet wide. What distance will he travel if he swims from one corner to the opposite?

Question

Michael is swimming in a pool that is 120 ft. long
by 50 feet wide. What distance will he travel if he
swims from one corner to the opposite?

 

Answer 1

the answer is 130 feet.  

 

Use pythagorean theorem. 

 

The legs are 50 and 120 and the hypotenuse (x) is the diagonal. 

 

50^2 + 120^2 = x^2

2500 + 14400 = x^2

16900 = x^2

square root both sides

130 = x

Answer 2

Take a bird's eye view of the rectangular pool.  It seems the swimming path is along the diagonal of a rectangle.  Draw that diagonal on paper, and label all four sides of the rectangle with the dimensions, in feet. Observe that this figure involves two identical right triangles. Do you recall the Pythagorean Theorem? Use it to find the length of the diagonal.