Two ships leave from the same port. One travels west 84 miles and the other travels 62 miles north. Determine the distance between the two ships.

Draw a diagram ando solve for the missing measure. When necessary round to the nearest tenth.

The distance the ships traveled are like the legs of a triangle and the question wants to know the hypotenuse. To find the hypotenuse, use the pythagorean theorem. this is a^2 + b^2 = c^2, with a and b being the legs and c being the hypotenuse.

Plug in known values:

84^2 + 62^2 = c^2

Solve:

84^2 = 7056

62^2 = 3844

7056 + 3844 = c^2

7056 + 3844 = 10900

10900 = c^2

Now you just need to isolate c by finding the square root of both sides.

√10900 = 104.403

√c^2 = c

So c = 104.403, or just 104.40 when rounded to the nearest tenth.

And if c is 104.40, then that means the hypotenuse is 104.40.

And all of that basically means that the distance between the ships is 104.40 miles.