POW

Natalie Youssef
Calculus
Period 3

-Restate the problem. 2 pts.

There are four cities that are each one-mile apart. The challenge is to create roads in
order to connect all four cities in the most sufficient way that takes up the least
amount of time to get to one city to the other. I know that the most sufficient way is
going to include straight lines because curved lines are longer.
-Process. 4 pts.
At first I tried creating an X in Scenario 1 in order to create roads that linked to all
four cities while only using two lines. I knew this was not the fastest option because
it seemed too easy. I was able to figure out that the total length of the roads used for
this scenario by using the equation:

This equation lead to me to the answer that the total length of both of the roads was
2.8284 miles long. After I came to this conclusion, I knew that the fastest solution
had to have a length that was shorter than 2.8284 miles long. In order to figure out
how long the roads were in my second scenario that I created I made up numbers
and used the Pythagorean theorem in order to solve for unknowns. Using this
technique I found that the three lines I used in the second scenario would be shorter
than the first scenario. The length of these roads in the second scenario was found to
be 1.9142 miles long. The last solution that I came up with used a total of five lines. I
was unsure at first if the mileage would be any shorter than the second scenario. In
order to find how long this was logically guessed that the middle line was .5 miles
long. Using this method I used the Pythagorean theorem again and found that the
length was exactly the same as the second scenario. Doing the calculations for both
the third and second scenario led me to believe that they both are 1.91421 miles
long.
Different scenarios:

POW

Natalie Youssef
Calculus
Period 3

-Solution. 2 pts.
The solution that I came up with is that both scenario 2 and 3 are the fastest ways to
go from city to city covering the least amount of distance. The exact measurements
that led me to this solution are:
Scenario 2:
For this scenario I imagined that the straight line directly in the
middle of the square was .5 miles long. Then I created another line
as if the line directly in the middle of the square were to continue.
Using .5 miles I used the Pythagorean theorem equation: a2 + b2 =
c2:
.52 +.52 = c2

.5 = c2

(.707106* 2) +.5 = c

1.91421 miles long.

Scenario 3:
In order to figure out the distance in miles total for this scenario I
used the same method that I used while solving in scenario 2. The
difference is that there were more triangles that I created and more
roads that I had to include while calculating the total distance.
Similar to scenario 2, I imagined that the middle line was .5 miles
long. Using the Pythagorean theorem I calculated:
252 +.252 = c2

.125 = c2

(.35355 * 4) +. 5 = c

1.91421 miles long.

-Justification. 2 pts.
I do not believe that this solution is correct because I was unsure of variables that I
created because I had to make up numbers and go from there. These numbers that I
made up gave me a head start as to what I should look for. I am still trying to solve a
different problem, which will give the actual lengths of the roads I created. I believe
that the real answer will involve solving for variables by graphing and guessing and
checking. I am still uncertain as to how I can accomplish this.