Two cars leave an intersection. One car travels north; the other east. When the car traveling north had gone 15 mi, the distance between the cars was 5 mi more than the distance traveled by the car heading east. How far had the eastbound car traveled?

Question

18508 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-09-02T02:19:07

The eastbound car went #20# miles.

Draw a diagram, letting #x# be the distance covered by the car travelling eastbound.

enter image source here

By pythagorean theorem (since the directions east and north make a right angle) we have:

#15^2 + x^2 = (x+ 5)^2#

#225 + x^2 = x^2 + 10x+ 25#

#225 - 25 = 10x#

#200 = 10x#

#x = 20#

Hence, the eastbound car has travelled #20# miles.

Hopefully this helps!