Question

A man goes 40 m due north and then 50 m due west. Find his distance from the starting point.

Answer 1

Here, we need to measure the distance AB as shown in the figure below,

Pythagoras theorem states that in a right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the remaining two sides.

Therefore, in this case
AB² = BC² + CA² 
AB² = 50² + 40² 
AB² =  2500 + 1600
AB² = 4100
AB = 64.03
Therefore the required distance is 64.03 m.