Avoiding a collision. A car is traveling on a road that?

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MelissaC

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Avoiding a collision. A car is traveling on a road that
is perpendicular to a railroad track. When the car is
30 meters from the crossing, the car’s new collision
detector warns the driver that there is a train 50 meters
from the car and heading toward the same crossing. How
far is the train from the crossing?
 
This is a 3:4:5 right triangle.
So you have a train 40 meters from the grade crossing.
 
To explain why though you have to bring in the pythagorus theorum, which comes in the play with any right angle triangle. The sum of the squares of the lengths of the two sides must equal the square of the hypotonus which is the diagonal between you and the train.
 
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