Phillip is standing across the classroom from his desk. He walks x steps in a straight line to his right, turns left at a 90° angle, and then walks another y steps in a straight line to arrive at his desk. The shortest path from Phillip's original position to his desk is d steps. Which of the following functions would best model the situation above?
This is an example of the Pythagorean Theorem. The path that is created is a right triangle. If you square the legs, their sum is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. The hypotenuse is the distance d in this problem.
