1. ## please urgent help with homework

This is the qusetion

Two boats depart the same location at the same time. The first travels west at 55mph and the second travels north at 60mph. Draw a right triangle which describes the position of the boats after one hour. Then solve this right triangle.

2. Originally Posted by fifi2007
This is the qusetion

Two boats depart the same location at the same time. The first travels west at 55mph and the second travels north at 60mph. Draw a right triangle which describes the position of the boats after one hour. Then solve this right triangle.

Okay, this one isn't too hard. They only ask you to draw it after an hour. So the one boat would simply have travelled 55 miles west, and the other 60 miles north.

[See the image i attached]

You probably want the distance between the boats.

Lets name the hypotenuse $S_{H}$
The course of the 55mph boat: $S_{B55}$
The course of the 60mph boat: $S_{B60}$

Let's use Pythagoras now.

$S_{H} ^ {2} = S_{B55} ^{2} + S_{B60} ^{2}$
$S_{H} ^ {2} = (55)^{2} + (60)^{2}$
$S_{H} ^ {2} = 6625$

Thus $S_{H} = 81,394 miles$

3. Sorry, here is the image.

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EDIT: And i see you also double posted(http://www.mathhelpforum.com/math-he...d-problem.html).