Suppose a railroad rail is 5 kilometers and it expands on a hot day by 20 centimeters in length. How many meters would the center raise above the ground?

The length of the railroad is 1km and it expands 10cm. To solve this problem, you have to create a right triangle. You can do this by cutting everything in half. Your hypotenuse will be 1/2km + 5cm, one of the legs will be 1/2km. To make everything simple, I converted everything into meters. So you will have 500m +.05m as the hypotenuse and 500m as one of the legs. Use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the other leg. Do not round your answer. My teacher emailed me a hint to answering the question. She cahnged everything to meters.

use Pythagoras theorem to solve for the other leg. that is your answer. Your teacher spelled it out for you.

4 centimeters ... you're welcome