Question

You are helping to design a road for a high mountain pass. There are two routes over the pass, but both have to cross steep ravines. Use what you know about solving radical functions to design a bridge that will safely cross the ravine.1. What is the horizontal distance that your bridge must span to clear the ravine? The figure below represents your bridge, where the horizontal distance from one edge of the ravine to the other is x, the rise of the bridge from one side of the ravine to the other is y, and the length of the bridge deck is r.I INSERTED A PICTURE OF THE FIGURE

Answer 1

Looking at the image, we have the following distances, creating a right triangle:

x: horizontal distance, leg of a right triangle

y: vertical distance, leg of a right triangle

r: length of the bridge, hypotenuse of a right triangle.

So the horizontal distance the bridge needs to cover is equal to x.