SWIMMING WITH THE PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM Jeremiah Parker

As the Olympics quickly approach, Susan, a swimmer that is competing in long distance swimming has been preparing for her event. After training one day, she has a very long conversation with her coach about her training. Susan says, “I’ve been training in the pool for the past three years.” Her coach states, “The Olympics are right around the corner.” She explains that she has trained religiously and without complaint but cannot keep swimming in the pool every day.

Coach agrees to try to find a solution, “Lets put our heads together and try to come up with a conclusion.” Excited about this, Susan agrees to start thinking.

Her usual route has become very boring since she swims it day in and day out and she wants to find somewhere new to swim. Susan says, “I think I have an idea about where I can swim.” Coach asks, “Do you think the distance will be long enough?”

Her coach said, “Let me know by the morning and we can figure something out.” This excited Susan and she knew exactly where she wanted to swim… Lake Carroll. Susan says to herself, “Hopefully Lake Carroll will be large enough.”

She knew that the swim needed to be at least 4 miles so she started with her calculations. “I need to swim at least four miles to make Coach let me swim here. I know that it is three miles from my house to the dam and it is four miles from the dam to the spill way.” She calculated that if she swims directly from her house to the spill way, she would be swimming 5 miles which was more than enough.

“That means if I swim directly to the spill way, I’ll be swimming five miles.” This excited Susan and she couldn’t wait to tell her coach.

Susan couldn’t sleep because she was so excited about the possibility of swimming in beautiful Lake Carroll. She rushed to the facility to tell her coach that she had found a route. “Coach, I found somewhere I can swim five miles.” Her coach was skeptical, “Are you sure it’s five miles?” Susan, “I’m positive, I did the math.” Coach says, “I hope you’re right.”

Susan agreed to take her coach to the lake. She offered to take coach, “I’ll show you the place this afternoon.” Still skeptical, coach says, “I’ll have to measure it to make sure it’s long enough.” After getting to the lake, coach still isn’t too sure about this idea. He states, “I don’t know if this will be far enough.”

Before starting her swim, Susan tells coach, “When I’m swimming, you can measure the distance in your boat.” Coach agrees and says, “Those were my thoughts exactly.” Susan started her swim and her coach started keeping track of the distance. As the completion of her swim, Susan asks, “Was it five miles?” It He was very surprised when they finished because it was exactly 5 miles. Coach said, “It was exactly five miles, Susan.”

He asked, “Susan, how did you know the swim would be 5 miles?” Susan replied by saying, “I learned about the Pythagorean Theorem in 8 th grade and never forgot the formula.” He was dumb founded because he had never heard about this formula. Hesitantly, he asked, “What’s the Pythagorean Theorem.”

Susan explains, “The Pythagorean Theorem states that a^2+b^2= c^2.” She continues, “Since I knew it was three miles from my house to the dam and four miles from the dam to the spill way, I put 3 in for a and 4 in for b. 3^2 is 9 and 4^2 is 16. When you add those together, you get 25. Not too high on academics, Coach states, “I don’t even remember 8 th grade.”

Susan continues explaining, “After that, you find the square root of 25 which is 5. This is how I knew the swim was 5 miles.” Impressed, Coach says, “You must be a genius.” Thinking back to her middle school years, Susan remembers all of her math teachers. She tells coach, “I just had a good math teacher in middle school.”