Starting from a place, two person travel in bicycles along two perpendicular roads at speed of u km/hr and v km/hr. What is the distance between their positions after t hours?

Does this problem use Pythagoras theorem? My understanding is that we need to find the hypotenuse to find the distance between their positions. But, speed and time are involved in this problem. How do I connect SDT (Speed-Distance-Time) formula with Pythagoras theorem, if my understanding is correct. Can anyone help please? Thanks

1 Answer
A08
Oct 25, 2017

Correct line of approach stated in the question.

Explanation:

Let #u" km/hr"# be the speed of one cyclist along #x#-axis and
#v" km/hr"# be the speed of other cyclist along #y#-axis

Distance traveled by first cyclist in #t" hours"=uthati" km"#
Distance traveled by second cyclist also in #t" hours"=vthatj" km"#

Distance #d# between the two cyclist after #t" hours"# is found as hypotenuse of the right triangle with two sides as above#=sqrt((ut)^2+(vt)^2)" km"#

#=>d=tsqrt(u^2+v^2)" km"#

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