Video Transcript
What is the total distance covered by someone who walks along the lines shown in the diagram?
Okay, so this is a question about distance traveled. We’re presented with a diagram, and we’re asked what the total distance covered by someone walking along the lines in that diagram is. Let’s begin by recalling our definition of distance.
Distance is defined as the length of the path between two points. So in this question, we could imagine that our person starts here. And we’re told that they walk along the lines. Let’s imagine that they first walk along this two-meter line, then this three-meter line, and finally this five-meter line. The person then ends up over here. The path that they have taken consists of the three lines in the diagram. And we know the lengths of each of these lines individually. Let’s label these lines or segments of path one, two, and three.
Since the total path consists of three segments, one, two, and three, then the total length of that path consists of the length of segment one plus the length of segment two plus the length of segment three. And we’ve said already that the distance covered is given by the length of the path between two points. So this left-hand side of the equation is equivalent to the distance covered by somebody who walks along these three segments of path.
The diagram shows us the lengths of each of the segments: one, two, and three. We have that the length of segment one is equal to two meters, the length of segment two is equal to three meters, and the length of segment three is equal to five meters. So let’s put these values into our equation for the distance covered. We have that the distance covered is given by two meters, the length of segment one, plus three meters, the length of segment two, plus five meters, the length of segment three. When we calculate this sum, we get a result of 10 meters.
And so we have our answer to the question that the total distance covered by somebody who walks along the lines shown in the diagram is 10 meters.
