Charlie travels Four blocks north Two east Three south and finally Two west How far is Charlie from his starting point?

Answer 1

The answer is one block. if you draw on a map where Charlie is, and move him in the correct directions, you will see that he is almost back where he began, only one block to the north of where he first started. This is a simple exercise in X and Y map coordinates. Setting the initial point at 0,0 and adding numerically, you can determine the final point. Let X be the points east and west (right and left as on a map). Let Y be the points north and south (up and down as on a map). Adding each change to the 0,0 starting point we get : * 4 blocks north = 0,4 * 2 blocks east = 2, 4 * 3 blocks south = 2, 1 * 2 blocks west = 0,1 Using this form, it is easy to see that he reversed his east-west movement completely, and only had a net change of +1 (north) on his north-south movement.