Question

If Victoria were to put his school at (0,0) on a coordinate plane, her house house would be located at (6,8). If each unit is equal to half of a mile, how many miles away from the school is Victoria's house? =miles away

Answer 1

Explanation:

If we draw this situation:

We can see that the distance between Victoria's school and her house is the hypotenuse of a right triangle. The bottom side is 6 units long and the left side is 8 units long. Using the Pythagoran theorem and if d is the hypotenuse (the distance):

$d^2=6^2+8^2$

So the distance in units is:

$d=\sqrt[]{36+64}=\sqrt[]{100}=10$

But we want to know this distance in miles. It is said that each unit equals to half of mile, therefore:

$d_{\text{units}}\cdot\frac{1}{2}=d_{\text{miles}}$

The distance in miles is half the distance in units: 5 miles

Answer:

Victoria's school is 5 miles away from her house.