The complete question: Megan bikes 6 miles west to get from her apartment to school. After school, she bikes 8 miles north to her friend's house. How far is Megan's apartment from her friend's house, measured in a straight line?
So,Megan's apartment, the school, and Megan's friend's house form a right triangle with legs 6 miles and 8 miles as you can see in the attached picture; the hypotenuse of the right triangle is the straight distance is from Megan's apartment to her friend's house. To find that distance we are going to use the Pythagorean theorem:
[tex]h= \sqrt{(6mi)^2+(8mi)^2} [/tex]
[tex]h= \sqrt{36mi^2+64mi^2} [/tex]
[tex]h= \sqrt{100mi^2} [/tex]
[tex]h=10mi[/tex]
We can conclude that distance between Megan's apartment and her friend's house is 10 miles.
