A rectangular park is 12 km long and 16 km wide. How long is a pedestrian route that runs diagonally across the park?

Question

A rectangular park is 12 km long and 16 km wide. How long is a pedestrian route that runs diagonally across the park?

Answer 1

A diagonal going through the rectangular park splits the park into two triangles. The diagonal becomes the hypotenuse of the triangle. This is letter c in the Pythagorean theorem where a² + b² = c². 

lets make a the 12 km side and b the 16 km side

12² + 16² = c² 

 

400 = c²

 

Take the square root of both sides and c = 20. Therefore the path is 20 km long