A movie theater is 3 blocks due north of a supermarket and a beauty parlor is 4 blocks due east of the movie theater. how many blocks long is the nearest street that runs directly from the supermarket to the beauty parlor?

The arrangement of the movie theater, supermarket and the beauty parlor form a right angled triangle with hypotenuse being the number of blocks between the supermarket and the parlor.

The legs of the triangle are 3 blocks and 4 blocks.

The question is about finding the hypotenuse.

Therefore,

Hypotenuse = Sqrt (3^2+4^2) = 5 blocks. The street is 5 blocks long.