2001 AMC 10 Problems/Problem 15
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Problem
A street has parallel curbs feet apart. A crosswalk bounded by two parallel stripes crosses the street at an angle. The length of the curb between the stripes is
feet and each stripe is
feet long. Find the distance, in feet, between the stripes.
Solution
Drawing the problem out, we see we get a parallelogram with a height of and a base of
, giving an area of
.
If we look at it the other way, we see the distance between the stripes is the height and the base is . The area is obviously still the same, so the distance between the stripes is
.