how many feet will he travel if he goes directly to school?

Question

Drew likes to take the long way to school each morning. He walks 3 blocks west and then 3 blocks north to arrive at the school. Today he is running late and decides go directly to school to save time. (Assume there is nothing obstructing his path.) If one block is 310 feet. how many feet will he travel if he goes directly to school? Round to the nearest tenth of a foot.

Answer 1

First let's change the distances into feet, since our answer needs to be in feet.

He travels three blocks west and three blocks north.

If each block is 310 feet.

Then he walks 3 x 310feet = 930 feet west

and 3 x 310feet = 930 feet north.

North and west are perpendicular directions, so they form a right angle.

Therefore, we can use the pythagorean theorem to solve this. The distance we want is the hypotenuse of the triangle with legs 930 feet and 930 feet